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EU4 - Development Diary - 12th of September 2017

Welcome all to another fine Tuesday and its accompanying EU4 Dev Diary. In last week's diary we mentioned that we would take a look at changes to Islam in the upcoming expansion which will be released alongside update 1.23. As we have made clear, we're giving a lot of love to the Muslim world in 1.23 and as such let's look at changes we've made to Islam and Piety.

We'll start with looking at the Piety bar. As a mechanic, it has remained fairly untouched for EU4's existence. Few would doubt that the Piety bonuses are strong, but they can't be called the most engaging of the game's content. In 1.23, we've visually spruced up the Piety bar, introducing terms for both ends of the spectrum, with low Piety being called Mysticism and high piety being depicted as devotion towards Legalism. Additionally, Piety events have been rewritten to reflect different the types of piety (Mystic vs Legalistic) rather than trying to measure "how pious" a ruler was. We have also taken this opportunity to weed out some of the older events that were not up to our current standards, with book burning no longer being a Pious action.

piety bar.jpg


Additionally, for expansion owners your passive Piety bonus can be passed up in favour of one-off effects depending on your Pious leanings. At -75 piety or lower, you can call on Religious Followers to bolster your manpower, gaining 2 years' of manpower growth. At 75 or greater Piety, you are able to Enforce Faithful Adherence for an immediate loss of 2 corruption. These actions will push your piety back towards the centre by 50, so consider carefully if the one-time action is worth foregoing the Pious effect you have built up.

Additionally, each Islamic nation will follow one Muslim School of Law. The School that your nation adheres to is predetermined and cannot be changed, or for new nations/converts, chosen at your spawning/conversion. Each School grants its own bonus and has a relationship with each other school, ranging between Respect, Ambivalent and Hate. While Ambivalence grants no particular effect, nations from Schools with a mutual respect or hatered will find relations and diplomatic acceptance strengthened or shakier respectively. The relationships between schools are harmed by large scale and prolonged wars between larger nations of those schools, and conversely can be improved by longstanding, trusting alliances between them.

schools.jpg


Schools and their bonuses are as follows:

religious_schools = {
#Sunnis
hanafi_school = {
technology_cost = -0.05
}
hanbali_school = {
ae_impact = -0.1
}
maliki_school = {
development_cost = -0.1
}
shafii_school = {
merchants = 1
}
#Shias
ismaili_school = {
horde_unity = 1
legitimacy = 1
republican_tradition = 0.5
devotion = 1
}
jafari_school = {
shock_damage = 0.1
}
zaidi_school = {
shock_damage_received = -0.1
}
}

relations degrade.jpg


So while your own School is set in stone, we allow Islamic nations to Invite Scholars from other Schools. Assuming an alliance and high relations with another nation, you will be able to spend 50 Admin points to invite a Scholar who will give you an extra effect in addition to your own School's for 20 years.

invite scholar.jpg


Inviting a scholar from an opposing faith's School (Such as a Sunni nation trying to invite a Zaidi Scholar) will require low piety, although the Ibadis are exempt from this.

Additionally, as I like to do, let's have a look at Another region of the world and how trade goods have changed. In fact, let's just grab all of western/Central Europe!

W europe trade goods .jpg


With Piety and Muslim Schools covered today, we shall spend the next week sheepishly looking at two nations in particular who had a profound effect on the Middle East in the 15th Century.
 
i guess it died because islamic countries weren't that rich at those times. without money you can't research anything. (still same) ofc religious bigotry was one of the reasons though.
The wealth never really disappeared, though it is true that new people's took power in the region around that time and those peoples were interested in other things. Still the wealth didn't go away per se, at least not until the mongols torched Baghdad. And even then the region was still on the crossroads between europe and india/china, at least until the Europeans started sailing around Africa.
 
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That was destroyed in 1258 EU4 begins in 1444 that's almost 200 years later. And even then the muslim schoars had abandoned logic after the mystic Al-Ghazali who publiched a work called Tahāfut al-Falāsifa, The Incoherence of the Philosophers, in the 11th century. The dominant thought shcool became Ash'ari.
In 1444 Islam is very different from the religion who built the house of wisdom.


There's also more iron in England than in all of Scandinavia combined. Småland should probably have livestock too they used to smuggle it over the border and sell it in Denmark because the Danes paid better.

Al-Ghazali argument is very weak and does not make a lot of sense as Al-Ghazali was a Philosopher until his death. He condemned Philosophy as a replacement for scriptures when it comes to the understanding of god's nature (because mu'tazilite went super deep into Philosophy while not taking scriptures into account) .

Also Ash'ari school of thought is a middle ground between mu'tazilite and salafi schools . They use logic and Philosophy as well as scriptures when it comes to the understanding of god's nature.

Salafi school pisses all over logic and Philosophy, and when they try to sound Philosophic and logical, they make 1+1 = 3.
 
Al-Ghazali argument is very weak and does not make a lot of sense as Al-Ghazali was a Philosopher until his death. He condemned Philosophy as a replacement for scriptures when it comes to the understanding of god's nature (because mu'tazilite went super deep into Philosophy while not taking scriptures into account) .

Also Ash'ari school of thought is a middle ground between mu'tazilite and salafi schools . They use logic and Philosophy as well as scriptures when it comes to the understanding of god's nature.

Salafi school pisses all over logic and Philosophy, and when they try to sound Philosophic and logical, they make 1+1 = 3.
Whether the reason is Al-Ghazali or the invading turks (and later mongols) the point remains in 1444 the middle east is not particularly scientifically advanced any more. Europe is three renaissances down while wave after wave of foreign invaders have swept over the ruins of the Abbasid golden age and picked the corpse clean. The dynamics have changed.

Of course China is more advanced than either. At least in some ways.
 
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As much as I love those bonus etc, the School bonus might be..a bit overpowered aren't they? Wouldn't they be better to be scaled at Protestantism level?
 
I don't know if you're sneakingly trying to provoke a dispute here but one thing I understand is you're good at concealing things. Here's an example of how muslims denied greek philosophy and technology:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wisdom
Muslims back then were not behind western tech to follow it up. Besides, they made a consistent endeavour for science when nobody else did.


Care to inform us of this discovery by giving sources maybe?


Just a few weeks after dev diary about Ulugh Beg. Anyway, you're referring to Takiyuddin's observatory I presume. Takiyuddin's observatory wasn't demolished because it was an observatory. I can tell behind the scenes for those graciously fond of history. Palace politics was one of the reasons for example...

1) The House of Wisdom was a few centuries before the time im talking about.

2) Source: https://www.amazon.com/Civilization-West-Rest-Niall-Ferguson/dp/0143122061 (this is also the main source of everything I said).

3) I'd have to look back on the specifics of the observatories from the source above.
 
No one noticed the new Theodoro flag?

By the way, the two factions in the spotlight for next week are most likely the Aq Qoyunlu and the Qara Qoyunlu, as he jokingly made the 'sheepish' remark.
 
I am somewhat disappointed that Ottoman are receiving more buff than necessary. -5% tech discount? That only give AI Ottoman more MP to spend somewhere else.

I am already seeing them grow to more than 2k development total and just wreck everything else even a 3k development Ming with equal techs. Which unfortunately has become the nominal end-game experience.
 
I am somewhat disappointed that Ottoman are receiving more buff than necessary. -5% tech discount? That only give AI Ottoman more MP to spend somewhere else.

I am already seeing them grow to more than 2k development total and just wreck everything else even a 3k development Ming with equal techs. Which unfortunately has become the nominal end-game experience.
They have already confirmed that the Ottomans will be getting netto nerfed this patch.
No one noticed the new Theodoro flag?
No I overlooked that one. Black cross on Yellow field, that was used for the ostrogoths in rome total war barbarian invasion too. Is there some significance of this device to the goths?
Symbol_ostrogoths.png

Skärmklipp2.JPG
 
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I just wonder why I should ever want to be pious.
Because tech cost reduction isn't very good, manpower is only good early on and truth be told you'll have plenty of money in the late game anyway.
No, I'm not going to dig up a single offhand comment by a dev in a ton of dev diaries and/or streams, you're the one interested you do it. The truth is out there. If that means you don't believe me then don't.
 
That's not how an argument works. The person claiming something has to deliver proof, if challenged.
 
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That's not how an argument works. The person claiming something has to deliver proof, if challenged.
This is not an argument I don't care what he believes or not. I did him a favour by remembering that comment, he can look it up or not it's all the same to me. Why should I waste my time on this, to quote Dumbledore "I can think of a whole host of things I would rather be doing".
 
With these new trade goods, it'd be nice to see sufficiently developed provinces get events that let them change from grain to a more "advanced" good like glass, silk, or some metal, if there's an untapped vein in the area.

Norfolk is in a very weird state anyway in EU4. Only Gwynedd and Cumbria have lower development, when Norwich was the second largest city after London in England for a long time and an important trading hub for wool with the rest of Europe. As you mentioned Norfolk as a county was also important in agriculture, so either wool or grain would make much more sense as trade good
This seems suggestion thread worthy. I'm sure the devs would change it if you posted a thread and a relevant source.