Substates and Federalism are Coming with National Awakening

[Science-Recon]

Whilst everyone, myself included, is hyped for the upcoming update and DLC with the reworked trade and diplomacy, I, personally, am also hyped about the later DLC in this 'chapter': National Awakening. Mostly because I believe that it will finally add some sort of substate/federalism mechanic.

Personally, I've been longing for a Federal vs. Unitary state mechanic since release, as personally I think that it's the best and only way to have a realistic and engaging political situation: you can't really simulate the American civil war or antebellum US politics without it, it was a major contention in Mexico and many other countries and Irish home rule was a major issue in British politics and Icelandic home rule and independence actually happened.

So what makes me think it's actually coming? The DLC hasn't even properly been announced yet.

Well, there are some screenshots on the Steam page for the season pass, one of which is the biggest hint:

There are a few things about this. The first is that it is a game event about a historical event (or possibly this, although the text leads me to believe it's the former), not some alt-history path for Hungary. The second is that both Hungary and Transylvania exist.
Currently they're not present at all in-game but are directly-controlled Austrian states. The yellow highlight and flag text icons implies that they exist in some form, which could be as subjects but that would a) be very disappointing but b) be unworkable unless the games mechanics were significantly changed in other ways: having Hungary (not to mention Bohemia, Lombardy-Venetia &c.) as subjects would slash Austria's prestige significantly and also make the game borderline unplayable between their tiny army, low prestige and unmanagable liberty desire of their subjects. Another reason I believe this to be a substate mechanic rather than a map change to subjects is that the event location is labelled as 'Nordsiebenbürgen' (the German for Northern Carpathians/Transylvania), which implies that the owner of the state has a German primary culture, which neither Hungary nor Transylvania have.

Now that might be a bit circumstantial, you could say that maybe they will just be regular subjects and that Transylvania will have an extra primary culture. One final thing that convinces me though is this from the description:

Of all of the nations receiving focal content, Bulgaria stands out as the only one that neither exists at gamestart nor is a formable. Additionally, Bulgaria was a mere province of the Ottoman Empire until the Russians forced the Ottomans to establish a nominal 'vassal' Principality of Bulgaria in 1878. Prior to 1878, Bulgarian autonomy was basically non-existant and the devs have previously stated that Poland's lack of any real autonomy following the rebellions is why they have not made Congress Poland a playable/subject nation.

Beside all that, it would be an extremely appropriate mechanic to add to an Austria/Balkan/Nationalism update. Being able to have Austria's (and other countries') internal divisions represented without making the country itself unplayable/uncompetitive - not just in Austria but in most countries; from US/German/Other Federal States, Chinese provinces provinces gaining power as the central authority becomes weaker, Irish/Icelandic/&c. agitation for Home Rule (and that potentially leading to independence) and many more possible applications.

I think, cumulatively, the evidence is not conclusive but is convincing. Maybe I'll turn out to be wrong, but we'll have to wait and see.


EDIT:

As has been pointed out later in this thread, the announcemnet post for National Awkakening also hints at some federalism/substate mechanic:

Explicitly mentioning a federationist state, as opposed to absolutist (and thus presumably unitary) rule. Additionally, Hungary is mentioned as having a role both within and without the Empire.

 

[Desseabar]

Whilst everyone, myself included, is hyped for the upcoming update and DLC with the reworked trade and diplomacy, I, personally, am also hyped about the later DLC in this 'chapter': National Awakening. Mostly because I believe that it will finally add some sort of substate/federalism mechanic.

Personally, I've been longing for a Federal vs. Unitary state mechanic since release, as personally I think that it's the best and only way to have a realistic and engaging political situation: you can't really simulate the American civil war or antebellum US politics without it, it was a major contention in Mexico and many other countries and Irish home rule was a major issue in British politics and Icelandic home rule and independence actually happened.

So what makes me think it's actually coming? The DLC hasn't even properly been announced yet.

Well, there are some screenshots on the Steam page for the season pass, one of which is the biggest hint:
View attachment 1292326
There are a few things about this. The first is that it is a game event about a historical event (or possibly this, although the text leads me to believe it's the former), not some alt-history path for Hungary. The second is that both Hungary and Transylvania exist.
Currently they're not present at all in-game but are directly-controlled Austrian states. The yellow highlight and flag text icons implies that they exist in some form, which could be as subjects but that would a) be very disappointing but b) be unworkable unless the games mechanics were significantly changed in other ways: having Hungary (not to mention Bohemia, Lombardy-Venetia &c.) as subjects would slash Austria's prestige significantly and also make the game borderline unplayable between their tiny army, low prestige and unmanagable liberty desire of their subjects. Another reason I believe this to be a substate mechanic rather than a map change to subjects is that the event location is labelled as 'Nordsiebenbürgen' (the German for Northern Carpathians/Transylvania), which implies that the owner of the state has a German primary culture, which neither Hungary nor Transylvania have.

Now that might be a bit circumstantial, you could say that maybe they will just be regular subjects and that Transylvania will have an extra primary culture. One final thing that convinces me though is this from the description:
View attachment 1292361
Of all of the nations receiving focal content, Bulgaria stands out as the only one that neither exists at gamestart nor is a formable. Additionally, Bulgaria was a mere province of the Ottoman Empire until the Russians forced the Ottomans to establish a nominal 'vassal' Principality of Bulgaria in 1878. Prior to 1878, Bulgarian autonomy was basically non-existant and the devs have previously stated that Poland's lack of any real autonomy following the rebellions is why they have not made Congress Poland a playable/subject nation.

Beside all that, it would be an extremely appropriate mechanic to add to an Austria/Balkan/Nationalism update. Being able to have Austria's (and other countries') internal divisions represented without making the country itself unplayable/uncompetitive - not just in Austria but in most countries; from US/German/Other Federal States, Chinese provinces provinces gaining power as the central authority becomes weaker, Irish/Icelandic/&c. agitation for Home Rule (and that potentially leading to independence) and many more possible applications.

I think, cumulatively, the evidence is not conclusive but is convincing. Maybe I'll turn out to be wrong, but we'll have to wait and see.

Yep – seems extremely likely. but this is a good spot which I missed.

I guess it will start with the individual kingdoms of Austria and maybe the Wilayets of the Ottomans?
If this is the case I really hope it also allows a rework of some other regions: Russia, Sokoto, the US and much of Latin America are all regions that could really benefit from having semi-autonomous internal countries.

 

[Rudolf Nechvile II]

I don't think your speculation is implausible, and I've personally been thinking the same thing. Although they may have changed their stance, previously, the devs were quite sceptical of representing the Dual Monarchy by just making Hungary a regular PU:

To my best understanding of history, Hungary did not have enough autonomy in 1836 to be accurately represented as a subject state at that time. You could make an argument for it after Austria became A-H but a very crucial part of A-H was Hungarian privileges and ambitions in regards to shared domination over other parts of the empire, so I'm not sure about that either. I'm of course open to changing my mind if there are compelling enough sources on the subject to indicate they should start as a subject.

Subjects' GDP and military power gives prestige to overlords in V3, so it shouldn't be a huge issue in terms of keeping Austria a GP (and shared market means they can still access Hungarian goods). I'm skeptical that it makes sense historically, though.

So I could definitely see them adding an autonomous province, or internal vassal system. Perhaps, something along the lines of CK3 vassals.

Perhaps the scope will be subdued at first (as always with new mechanics), but you could potentially designate autonomous provinces (perhaps to decrease minority unrest), have laws on how much autonomy they have with regards to provincial laws, and it could eventually become a push and pull between centralisation from the capital, and decentralisation from the provinces. Perhaps over time autonomous provinces could become external subjects, and eventually free themselves too.

The great thing is, it could add a lot of potentially fun and more nuanced internal political management between the core and peripheries, and a lot of countries could benefit too, like Russia, Germany (and the North and South German Confederations), and perhaps in future the US.

 

[yurcick]

This is wonderful news, and I thank OP for the finding.

I only hope that this is done in a general manner, and not a set of bespoke rules for the Habsburgs.
Right now different tags have very little law interconnection, and territories within the same tags don't have any law variety, except for incorporated/unincorporated status.
This produces insanities like Ottoman serfdom or a separate Baltic tag.

While this can be solved in different ways, I personally would prefer
1) more tags
2) overall less seams between subjects and overlords, at least for certain subject types
2.1) explicit devolution law group, which dictates what is decided in the imperial capital, and what -- in the local capital
2.2) possibility for direct financing of subjects' government and infrastructure from the imperial budget (right now the subjects are taxed, which makes AI playing them die all the time; this shouldn't be just removed, this should be mostly, by default, reverted)
2.3) limited, but possible subjects' pops participation in the imperial politics

 

[Helmut von Dandy]

I would temper my expectations. If these are new mechanics I’d expect them to be fairly basic. It’s been pretty clear from the dev diaries and dev comments that any new mechanics post-CoC will be fairly limited in scope. I think anything we see will be smaller than movements and acceptance in 1.8, and certainly not any bigger.

 

[Rudolf Nechvile II]

Another thing I think that plays into this is actually the Iberian DLC that comes after National Awakening. Lots of people have pointed out that Cuba and the Philippines would be better represented as being part of Spain, but currently provinces can't have different laws from the nation in general, so Cuba is a separate tag. Now I'm no expert on the subject, but assuming the argument is correct, if National Awakening includes internal vassals, Iberian Twilight would also immediately benefit afterwards.

It could also lay the groundwork for slave and free states in the US, so if internal subjects/provincial governments come this year, I would be so bold as to predict a potential American flavour pack next year. Especially if you consider the addition of the Carlist Wars with Iberian Twilight, and a potential civil war rework or adjustments. My reasoning is that as of late, updates and DLCs have been building onto each other a lot more, with this trend being especially apparent with CK3.

 

[Delterius]

Although they may have changed their stance, previously, the devs were quite sceptical of representing the Dual Monarchy by just making Hungary a regular PU:

I think the OP's speculation is in line with the dev quotes you provided, not a refutation of them. If the OP is right then you have substates or federalism. Hungary would be explicitly owned by the Austrian Empire and not a separate, subject state. Hungarian army, gdp and prestige would add up to Austria's because it is still a single country. Just like New York's army, gdp and prestige add to the United States'. Which is why the OP also talks about regions like Poland and Bulgaria.

 

[Science-Recon]

Perhaps the scope will be subdued at first (as always with new mechanics), but you could potentially designate autonomous provinces (perhaps to decrease minority unrest)

Yeah, by their current development ethos I'd expect them to add the basic mechanic of 'substates' or whatever they end up calling it. This would be scriptable to define exactly how autonomous the substate is - can it control it's own armies or do they go to their overlord, which laws/law-groups can they enact or are within their competencies and so on. The main thing I'd stipulate (though no idea if this is what PDX would do) is that substates can't do any diplomacy with other nations; that imo is what separates a substate from a vassal/subject.

Then they'll add content using this mechanic for Austria-Hungary - likely adding Bohemia, Lombardy-Venetia, the Archduchy proper, Galicia-Lodomiera, Bukovina and Transylvania and Hungary - with Hungary then further having Croatia as a substate within it.

This could then be expanded upon in future DLCs/updates for other areas of the world.

Germany (and the North and South German Confederations)

Yeah, one of the cool things of this being a thing is it would mean you could play as a minor German nation without having to defeat Prussia/Austria: as long as you back the winning horse, you get to remain a state within the German Empire. So you could e.g. play Bavaria and eventually join Germany but maintain Bavarian politics/industry &c.

I would temper my expectations. If these are new mechanics I’d expect them to be fairly basic. It’s been pretty clear from the dev diaries and dev comments that any new mechanics post-CoC will be fairly limited in scope.

Yes, as mentioned above, I'd imagine this DLC/update would just add the mechanic and one basic implementation of it, but it'd also lay the groundwork for future content. Also personally, I'd reckon that it would be less effort/work than the social hierarchies and descrimination rework in the Raj DLC/update (although obviously I don't have access to the sourcecode so that's only an educated estimate).

I think the OP's speculation is in line with the dev quotes you provided, not a refutation of them. If the OP is right then you have substates or federalism.

Yes, I think what they were saying is that they agree with me unless the devs have changed their mind and gone back on their previous statements, not if they have done so.

 

[47pik]

I think you’re on to something here OP, you’re right that single event screenshot does carry a lot of very interesting implications.

 

[Desseabar]

Yeah, by their current development ethos I'd expect them to add the basic mechanic of 'substates' or whatever they end up calling it. This would be scriptable to define exactly how autonomous the substate is - can it control it's own armies or do they go to their overlord, which laws/law-groups can they enact or are within their competencies and so on. The main thing I'd stipulate (though no idea if this is what PDX would do) is that substates can't do any diplomacy with other nations; that imo is what separates a substate from a vassal/subject.

Then they'll add content using this mechanic for Austria-Hungary - likely adding Bohemia, Lombardy-Venetia, the Archduchy proper, Galicia-Lodomiera, Bukovina and Transylvania and Hungary - with Hungary then further having Croatia as a substate within it.

Yeah, the kingdoms of Austria seem like the correct fit, and I posted in some other speculation thread a very similar expectation of what semi-autonomous states would look like. I think the missing point is giving political power to the central state. If they're advertising Bulgaria+Hungary it seems inevitable to have Hungary start as playable.

This seems like the ideal way to represent regional disparities: eg, Hungary and Galicia should start with serfdom while everywhere else in Austria starts with tenant farmers. In the US, you can split out Dixie and the North for two different law groups, etc.

Yeah, one of the cool things of this being a thing is it would mean you could play as a minor German nation without having to defeat Prussia/Austria: as long as you back the winning horse, you get to remain a state within the German Empire. So you could e.g. play Bavaria and eventually join Germany but maintain Bavarian politics/industry &c.

I really like this idea, and it adds more of a 'spectrum' to the subject scale. E.g., some Princely States might be represented as puppets while others become this new subject type. It would be really great to represent different styles of colonial expansion: e.g., early French expansion in Senegal relied on puppet kings who gradually lost their autonomy, while later expansion was direct territorial annexation.

 

[Science-Recon]

This seems like the ideal way to represent regional disparities: eg, Hungary and Galicia should start with serfdom while everywhere else in Austria starts with tenant farmers. In the US, you can split out Dixie and the North for two different law groups, etc.

Yeah, the Austria and the US are the ones most severely in need of this. Austria to have the internal tensions between Hungarians, Germans and other Minorities the US to be able to actually have any vaguely realistic depiction of US politics and political structures. The states should start out very strong and have their own armies. They'd also have their own laws and, importantly, IGs - 'Souther Planters' would actually be the Southern landowners, who along with the devout and rural folk in southern states would be very racist and strongly pro-slavery. Northern devout and rural folk however would be abolitionist and even nothern landowners should be at most neutral towards slavery. It'd also allow for the civil war to come about in a somewhat more dynamic and historical way - the states secede individually to form the confederacy in a short build-up period before the war actually starts.

I really like this idea, and it adds more of a 'spectrum' to the subject scale. E.g., some Princely States might be represented as puppets while others become this new subject type. It would be really great to represent different styles of colonial expansion: e.g., early French expansion in Senegal relied on puppet kings who gradually lost their autonomy, while later expansion was direct territorial annexation.

Yeah, personally I'd keep the princely states as subjects until the Mutiny happens and then make them substates (although with more or less the same autonomy minus diplomacy) of the Raj. Mainly for a nice, clean border and name placement though rather than any actual difference in official/legal status.

Although, the argument could be made that that is somewhat historically how the Raj was viewed by foreign powers.

 

[Rabid]

I've seen some previous speculation on this based on the inclusion of Bulgaria in the list of "featured" countries in the DLC description, though this seems like stronger evidence still. I'm not entirely convinced that this will go as far as full federalism but at the very least this is clearly some stage of existence of a country between being a puppet and directly owned territory of a larger state.

Hopefully they will rework the existing Poland content to use whatever new system is being introduced, it would be a real shame for this to be held back for a future DLC since the lack of a Polish state is one of the most unusual things about this period (historically speaking) and it's a very fun alt-history scenario to play through (which currently requires modding, or releasing Poland as a Russian puppet).

 

[Desseabar]

Yeah, the Austria and the US are the ones most severely in need of this. Austria to have the internal tensions between Hungarians, Germans and other Minorities the US to be able to actually have any vaguely realistic depiction of US politics and political structures. The states should start out very strong and have their own armies. They'd also have their own laws and, importantly, IGs - 'Souther Planters' would actually be the Southern landowners, who along with the devout and rural folk in southern states would be very racist and strongly pro-slavery. Northern devout and rural folk however would be abolitionist and even nothern landowners should be at most neutral towards slavery. It'd also allow for the civil war to come about in a somewhat more dynamic and historical way - the states secede individually to form the confederacy in a short build-up period before the war actually starts.

Yeah, personally I'd keep the princely states as subjects until the Mutiny happens and then make them substates (although with more or less the same autonomy minus diplomacy) of the Raj. Mainly for a nice, clean border and name placement though rather than any actual difference in official/legal status.

Although, the argument could be made that that is somewhat historically how the Raj was viewed by foreign powers.

Yep, strongly agree. I'd love a system where the US is balancing slave+free states in expansion as you integrate more states, and hopefully something where long-term we get content about annexing more of Mexico, Alaska, Cuba and other Caribbean territories. Obviously that's not all in scope for a Balkans DLC, but I'd love the bones to be there.

Let's see exactly what we end up with for autonomous states: I think treaties and CK3's vassal agreements provide a few templates for how it could be developed, but I'd like to see some options: appointed governor vs. local representation, as one clear example.

My question is how this system would handle laws. I think the 'cleanest' option is to let laws either be "Regional autonomy" or set at a federal level. E.g., for US, the slavery laws would be regional, but over time you shift the law to a central government law of freedom. Law-by-law, this represents another axis of 19th century reform: centralization. As Austria or the US become more centralized or decentralized states, different levels of laws are determined at a local level by the AI in charge of the state.

 

[TitaniumMan91]

So long as I don't end up with 50 sub-states when playing a historical US, that sounds fun. Also, please remove DC as a state, just throw it in Maryland. I know it's ahistorical, but there is no ability to get enough pops living there for it to be worth anything.

 

[Haresus]

I imagine this will probably just be journal entries designed specifically for Austria(-Hungary). They could still be very well-made and advanced journal entries that create interesting gameplay, but I doubt it's going to be something that will apply to countries outside of the immediate focus of the DLC. Same way that we got royal houses only for France with the France DLC.

 

[acidsun]

This mechanic could also tie to a "constitution" mechanic in which, for federal states, you'd have the central power define "constitutional limits" to how much each state under the same constitution can change their own laws in contrast to the central power's main set of laws.

So a really decentralized/federalized state would work almost exactly like a puppet today while a very centralized but not unitary state would only allow its states to change their laws within a certain range or limits.

For example, a fairly decentralized federal socialist state could have its constitution restrict states from changing from council republic to anything else but allow them to say, change from command economy to cooperative ownership or something like that.

Or maybe a constitution allows you to change any Economy or Human Rights law, but not Power Structure. And so on for several combinations according to how centralized you are.

 

[NGASAK]

People set expectation that will not be met later. Most likely that Austrian federalism will be represented by the Hungarian and Transylvanian tags released as vassals, because otherwise they would out something about it in a DLC description.

 

[Rabid]

People set expectation that will not be met later. Most likely that Austrian federalism will be represented by the Hungarian and Transylvanian tags released as vassals, because otherwise they would out something about it in a DLC description.

They could do that, but they've very publicly stated on several occasions that they don't like this "solution" for internal regional autonomy within major countries and have clearly chosen to avoid in in many places where it could have been used previously. It's not impossible that they change their opinions, but it seems just as likely that there will be some new gameplay mechanics to support this (and not just scripting)

 

[Cagallo]

I hope you are right. I've been fancying making a mod that included sub-state entities by creating a new type of subject -- but I'm not sure the actual modding capabilities allow this. Because ideally you want to have several layers of decentralization, this means there should be multiple types of subjects in which some can enact some of the laws and some not (e.g. a sub-state entity which has ability to raise its own army or police). But it would also generate the issues that OP mentioned in terms of halving prestige and other aspects of the gameplay.

I guess we'll have to wait and hope that it can be modded.

Edit: exactly what @yurcick was saying above.

Another edit: There's actually more screenshots on the expansion pack steampage. This is on Bosnia being conquered:

 

[Cagallo]

Just to add: in the steam page, there's mention of what it seems a new indicator/mechanism: National Fervor (they capitalize both words, so I assume it must be something important).