I think Burgundy needs an huge makeover because they were one if not the most promising and ambitious countries in Europe at 1444 but at the moment this doesn't seem to be represented in the game. Yes, they got wrecked in no time but for me all this game is about is "What have could been?" and here Burgundy offers a lot.
requirement : Constantinople owned by Ottomans, Year is before 1470.
- The Feast of the Pheasant :
Philip the Good organised a feast in the most traditional Burgundian way in Lille in 1454. Being a pious man, at the end of the feast, the Duke proceeded to promote the organisation of a Crusade against the Turks who recently took the Byzantines' Capital.
* Get my armies ready : +1 papal influence a year + 5% moral for 20 years against a certain amount of manpower and money.
* It's not our business : -5 prestige.
requirement : Louis XI rules France, before 1480.
- The League of the Public Weal
Even though king Louis XI of France spent a long time being under the protection of the "Grand Duke of the West", he was quite rude with his former host. His attempts of centralizing the kingdom of France didn't please the feudal lords and a coalition against Louis XI's tyrannical rule eventually formed.
* We should lead the League ! : +50 relation with Provence, Britanny, Palatinate and Cleves, - 50 relation with France
* Let's negociate with the king : +25 relation with France, +0.2 year of income.
Requirement : Year is at least 1470, need high prestige.
- A Crown for a King :
Both Philip the Good and Charles the Bold were desperate to elevate their duchy into a kingdom. A crown would bring coherence to the disorganized possession of Burgundy. In order to get the title of King, we have to deal with the Emperor.
*Accept the terms of the Emperor : In exchange of gold (a lot) and a wedding with Austria, get the Kingdom rank, prestige and claims over Savoy.
Austria is garanted to get the Low-Countries in case of inheritance.
*We will not deal with the Habsburg : -15 prestige.
requirement : Flanders does not exist, Burgundy owns flanders.
- Taxes in the Low-Countries
While our possessions in ducal Burgundy are used to taxes, the cities of the low-countries have long been privileged. Perhaps, now that these lands are firmly into our hands, the flemish merchants could contribute more to the finances of Burgundy.
*Their money is my money : Burgers - 15 loyalty, gain + 15% taxes and + 2 unrest until the end of the campaign on Vlaanderen and Gent
*Let's confirm these privileges : Burgers + 15 loyalty, + 10 provincial trade power and - 2 revolt risk until the end of the campaign on Vlaanderen and Gent.
First of all: A big
Yes for this events (altough I think there could be some changes) an another big
Yes for a formable Lotharingia.
1) I would change the Kingdom event that there is a limitation to Austria being the Emperor and there are at least two Options for Austria which "kind" of Kingdom to offer because Philip the Good (shout-out to this guy for getting his name written different in literally every language I saw it
) insisted on becoming King of Lotharingia while Frederick III only offered him to become King of Brabant.
So there could be
*Give him the Crone of Lothair, which would trigger the event as described by Liquidstuff and
*Offer him a minor Kingdom which would end in Burgundy resting an Duchy (until they form Lotharingia) and trigger something like the "Diplomatic Insult"-Event for the Player.
The probability could depend one the relations:
- 50:50 if Austria is neutral,
- 75:25 if Austria is allied or friendly
- 10:90 if Austria is rival, outraged or hostile
This would balance it a bit because getting free claims all over Savoy in every game would be a bit to much I my opinion. Or give it a similar MTTH like the Inheritance and the relations modify the MTTH.
2) "The Feast of the Pheasant" is a great start but I think one could add some more (maybe more generic) Feasts to reflect the fact that the Burgundian liked to party and to spend lots and lots of money therefor.
So it could be something like "spend two months of income" to get 25 Prestige, "Don't spend anything" to lose 25 Prestige, "Do something reasonable with the money" to get a little modifier like decreased WE or some Manpower.
(This is also something that I would love to see in adjusted form for the italian region, because they together with Burgundy were famous for their "events", like the carnival or the "trionfos" in Italy and the excessive "Feasts" in Burgundy)
It would be quite nice to see an event or decision for Burgundy to interact with Guelders and then be able to purchase the inheritance since that's how Charles the Bold made it part of the Burgundian Netherlands.
Burgundy should also start as Vermandois as they acquired all the Picard counties in 1435 in the Treaty of Arras.
Province-wise I think Franche-Comté is quite big and could easily be split into three - Amont, Aval and Besancon. Besancon being a (French!) Free Imperial City.
I know it's incredibly unlikely, but I would love it if Burgundy started with Holland, Brabant and Flanders integrated again but with events as suggested about the cities. Having them integrated would make Burgundy start off a great power, which IMO it absolutely deserves to start off as since it was so incredibly wealthy with such an influential court and elaborate courtlife. The dukes used Brussels (and Lille, which is currently not represented on the map but is in Flanders) as capitals. Brabant and Flanders were the true heart of their power, yet with them being PUs they are lost too easily.
3) +1 for Guelders but I think it should come with some opinion modifiers to the HRE-members because you are basically diploannexing a Prince. Or maybe make it a Vassal or add it to one of the PUs to keep the "Burgundian Netherlands are a patchwork"-Style of the game.
Vermandois in my opinion is a difficult decision because you would weaken France (not necessarily an bad thing
) and as far as I know Burgundy owned only parts of Vermandois after the Treaty of Arras (but I'm open to be corrected).
+1 for Splitting Franche-Comté. Making Besancon a Free Imperial City sounds interesting (and reflects the history) and you could Burgundy either give a claim or a mission to conquer / subjugate them to reflect the burgundian efforts to get influence.
4) About the PUs: In 1.21 I would absolutely share your opinion on integrating the PUs, just for the possibility of getting some real Alliances (starting with a -70 to get an RM or an Alliance, -90 if you dare to think of a second one isn't that great to start with, not o mention, that most of the interesting options regularly are either rivals or neutral), but since the AI seems not to care about my Diplo-points anymore (at least this is how I understood the patchnotes, still hadn't the chance to play 1.22 because I have to finish an old run first) I am ok with them being in a PU to make forming the Netherlands as a Minor possible.
Nonetheless you are right about those parts being the heart of the power of Burgundy (especially in regard of the economy and the art - something I will mention later again), so here an idea how to implement this in the game, without having to change the way PUs work (or make a special kind of PU just for Burgundy):
Being historically considered as one of the richest realms in Europe at this time, barley being able to go to FL (an enormous 19) or hire an advisor seems a bit inaccurate. Since this is mostly due to having the wealthiest parts of the realm being in an no-money-paying PU what about this:
An Event, which triggers every five years (like those from the idea groups) with the following options:
* Tax those "insert any dismissive word for Merchants" (I'm german and those aren't the words they teach you in school
): raises LD + 10%, decaying 2/year, Burgundy gets Modifier "Taxed Netherlands": 25% Tax-Income (and maybe some manpower) for 5 Years from your three dutch PUs.
* Let them live in liberty: Dutch Minors lose 5% LD, Burgundy gets modifier "Happy Subjects": +1 DipRep
(this surely needs some adjustments like probably every of my ideas; first thought of getting unrest for Taxes, but then realized that this would be to similar to Liquidstuffs After Integration-event and the unrest probably wouldn't hurt you, because its just a subject)
5) Now the aforementioned arts: As far as I know (checked the Wiki, but still possible I overlooked something), there are no events regarding the Northern Renaissance (except Erasmus, who has nothing to do with art), despite the burgundian dukes being well-known patrons.
Maybe an event like this:
trigger conditions: Renaissance spawned, Burgundy: has not embraced Renaissance, Dijon: has not Institution Renaissance, MTTH: 5 Years (Maybe a bit less, but not automatically after the spawn of Renaissance, so that the italian states still have a little advance)
- "The Successors of Jan van Eyck":
In our realm there are a lot of talented painters, sculptors and other artist, desperately searching for a generous ruler who is willing to afford their work.
*They need our Patronage: lose 0,5 years of income and 100 Diplo Points, add institution Renaissance to Dijon (or maybe just an Percentage, like 50% or something)
* We can not afford this: lose 5 Prestige
There could be little follow up-events, if you decide to support the artists, like finding a really talented guy or somebody producing a Masterpiece (which could grant a little increase to yearly prestige for lets say 5 years)
6) It would be cool, if the Order of the Golden Fleece would become a "real" thing instead of just the name of an NI because it is one of the few things from Burgundy which survived till today. One possibility could be to have an event with a short MMTH, where you can decide to either form the Order for a lot of Money (or maybe not that much because then the Order would have a too profound impact to be just "flavor") or just let the possibility slip an lose some prestige.
Afterwards you have to name four
christian rulers (since there were four officers) to become members of the Order. You get better relations with those new members (+10 or 20 maybe) and they get some Prestige.
Being Member of the Order could give a bit of Missionary strength and Army Tradition (like +0,5%), and / or double the Prestige for fighting against Heathens, since it was a knight order (hence the army tradition) and wanted to shield Christianity. Membership ends, when a Ruler dies or a Member is fighting in a war against the Duke or Burgundy.
The Order will be disbanded, when their is no ruler from the dynasty of Bourgogne (so either keeping the Order OR disinheriting heirs to get PUs but not both - and yes I know: for optimizers this is not even a decision, but there are also people who like to roleplay a bit)
7) Burgundy needs some real missions - and no, conquer the lands of your subject is not a real mission
- "Weaken France": ("Once we ruled this city inofficially, now it will trulely be ours") Conquer Paris; Reward: +1 yearly Prestige, + 10% Manpower recovery speed for 10 Years
- (if there would be the split-up of Franche-Comté) "Vassalize Besancon"; Reward: +1 Diplomatic Reputation for 10 Years
- "Vassalize Liege" (instead of "Conquer" it because in my Opinion this is more what the burgundian Dukes tried); Reward: +1 Diplomatic Reputation for 10 Years
- "Claim Lothair II's Capital": Conquer Aachen; should give another reward then a normal "conquer xyz" mission, maybe -5% AE and +1 Legitimacy for 10 years (like the byzantine "recover xyz"-missions)
- "Show those Mountain Farmers, what culture means"; Conquer Switzerland; Reward: -0.05 monthly autonomy change for 10 years; increase chance to be triggered if the relations are bad.
8) Just an idea I had while brainstorming for missions (maybe to OP): If England DOW France via the "Surrender of Maine"-event and is losing the war (as they are usually), there could be an event called "Renewal of the Treaty of Troyes" where England can ask Burgundy to form an Alliance and join the war (possibly for some provinces).
There could be a chain of one to three events (depending on decisions):
First an english event "Our french holdings are occupied" (Trigger Condition: Every Province owned by England in region France and Iberia occupied by: France; England and Burgundy are not Rivals; MTTH decreased if warscore < -50, if France is an Rival of Burgundy and at some stages of increasing WE (like 5, 10, 15 or something) with the following options:
* Maybe we can convince our former ally to help us? : Burgundy gets event "England requests our help"
* We must strengthen our efforts! : England lose 5 WE and gets -10% recruiting cost until the war ends.
- "England requests our help":
* We will help them, but we want to be paid before! : triggers "Renewal of the Treaty of Troyes_Calais"
* We will help them, but it will be costly... : triggers "Renewal of the Treaty of Troyes_"
* Once we were friends, fighting for the same cause. This friendship shall be renewed! : triggers "Renewal of the Treaty of Troyes_Friendship"
* This is not our war and they can not offer anything we need. : Burgundy does not join the war, Burgundy loses 25 Prestige, England gets opinion modifier "They refused to join our war" to Burgundy: - 50 decaying with 5 / year
- "Renewal of the Treaty of Troyes_Calais" has following effects:
* Calais is now owned by Burgundy
* Burgundy and England form an Alliance
* Burgundy joins the war on the side of England as if they were called in with favors (because England had to give up Calais, Burgundy can not expect to get further provinces in the peace deal)
* England loses 5 trust towards Burgundy (because of the lose of Calais)
- "Renewal of the Treaty of Troyes_Claims" has following effects:
* Burgundy and England form an Alliance
* Burgundy joins the war on the side of England as if they were called in on the promise of Land
- "Renewal of the Treaty of Troyes_Friendship"
* Burgundy and England form an Alliance
* Burgundy joins the war on the side of England as if they were called in with favors
* England gets 5 trust towards Burgundy (because Burgundy did not demand anything to join the war)
* England and Burgundy get the opinion modifier "historic friends" towards each other (? could be to much...)
Some thoughts about this:
I think it should be a bit like the Inheritance (maybe a bit rarer): When it happens it can have a profound influence on the campaign, but it should not happen every game.
But there are also some problems (balancing aspects left aside)
- England's "E-ur-ope problems are not my problems" attitude: From my experience England declares the war and then proceeds to just wait till France seized down all of their provinces. After that they send one stack, get wiped, send another stack, get wiped and then continue waiting until France can claim all their cores because of ticking WS. If England would continue like this after Burgundy joins the war, all the event would do is sending Burgundy in an (in the best case) 1vs1 fight against France, while England is enjoying himself on his island. Only real option then would be to take the Calais-Event, trying to "unsiege" the english provinces and hoping for a white peace (if its not feasible to beat the French alone).
- Its an offensive war: Because France is able to call in allies, the chances that the event could be useful get reduced a lot. I mean it is surely doable to get the war to a "good" end when fighting against France alone and I think it is still possible when they are allied to Savoy, but France + Savoy + Aragon (=> + Naples) - which for me seems to happen quite regularly - in a war, that is not my own war and with half of "my" army not totally under my own control because they belong to 4 subjects isn't something I would describe as my preferred game-start (Maybe players better than me would be happy to get a little challenge
) ...
- What if you win the war? Congratulations: You just made your new ally the overlord about your strongest neighbor, which has claims on your provinces. And to make things even better: You two are interested in exact the same trade node. Thinking this through it may be better to siege some french provinces, go for the separate peace and then let England get wrecked by France.
9) I know, the history of the Duchy of Burgundy after 1444 is rather short, but something I would really appreciate would be getting some (like one or two) characters in the game.
One good option would be "Le grand Bâtard", Charles the Bold's half-brother Anthony. This could be one of those events, where you can choose, what the role of the Person should be and could be triggered, when / if Charles ascend the throne:
* a General with 40 Army Tradition, as he regularly and successfully acted as a troop leader for Charles.
* an Level 2 Advisor with half costs, maybe a Diplomat, because this was one of his roles
maybe a third choice: * legitimize him and make him your heir. The Problem is: He is 12 years older than Charles, so it would be a bit risky to say the least
10) Maybe the ideas could use a little refreshing too. I'm not complaining, they are quite good, but for example two mercenary ideas seems a bit like an overkill to me, since the prices rose slightly in 1.20 and don't seem affordable for a realm with historical only semi-inaccurate financial problems (instead of making a lot of money and spending even more, Burgundy just starts with not making that much money you would maybe expect). So why not get rid of one of them (removing both wouldn't reflect the regular use of mercenaries in the burgundian army) or maybe half the limit modifier (25% instead of 50%) and make one out of the two (could be to much for an normal idea).
But the new free spot (gained the one way or the other) could be used to reflect, that Burgundy wasn't just a military and economic force but also a cultural center of Europe. I am not thinking of a tech cost reduction because this seems to me more like the "science" part of lets call it "major monarch points expanses" but rather an idea cost reduction, because I personally think of them as the pieces from which you can build the identity, the "culture" of your country. But as this is a rather powerful NI it could be better to make it the ambition and turn the trade steering into an NI.
Another interesting option, more for gameplay reasons than history, would be a DipRep +1/+2 because it seems rather off to have the country with probably the worst own land / subject land-ratio at game start, just going through the whole game without getting any bonus on annexing these subjects.
11) As it was already mentioned in the "The Feast of the Pheasant"-event from Liquidstuff Crusades were (at least ideational) a main theme of the burgundian Dukes, so this could make for a funny achievement or maybe a decision.
Like "Fulfillment of the Oath": every province in Europe (continent, so including Anatolia) is in religion group christian, every country in Europe (continent) is in religious group christian; playing as Burgundy, own and have core on Jerusalem (Yes, it is not that creative or challenging once you beat the Ottomans, but before you have to get a way there).
12) This is the most important point and if I had to decide for one change I'm sure this would it be:
Please beloved Paradox-Devs: Make Lotharingia (or something comparable) a formable country for Burgundy and Lorraine. Yes, it would be the third nation you could form as Burgundy but it would hopefully be the first nation worth the effort, since I don not really see a good reason to form either France or the Netherlands as Burgundy.
In my opinion its easier and faster to from the Netherlands as one of the dutch Minors as you can get at least one good Ally (either France or Austria, if the have rivaled Burgundy) straight from the beginning of the game, join the HRE, conquer the needed provinces and probably would be able to form the Netherlands even before Burgundy could start integrating his PUs, if there wasn't the requirement of Admin tech 10.
And for France you would have to fight one of the strongest nations head on, take a lot of AE and then be finally able to form this nation yourself, as if there wasn't an easier way to get a France with all of Burgundy integrated
It almost feels like some kind of T-800 / I'll be back-stuff
To finally come to an end a few annotations:
- Yes this is a lot of stuff, but basically they are just some crazy ideas I had the last few days, which I hope may get discussed in this thread. I think none of them is even close to became anything Paradox could implement, its more like "Throw 95% away and replace it with other stuff, adjust and balance 4% of it and keep those maybe 1% which are actually good"
- This may seem like some "Please Paradox, make my favorite nation the best in the game"-Post (btw Burgundy is not even my favorite Nation in Europe, just on second or third rang
) but it is intended to be more something like "Please Paradox, this is a great Nation and could be so much fun, but it just lacks some flavor and other things to make it feel more like it probably would have been in reality" It is a fine line between genius and madness and I think there is probably no other nation in EU4 one which this should apply more than Burgundy: Their whole history consists of (most of the time well prepared) high risk gambling: Either lose everything or double your stake, and being absolutely fabulous while doing so. I don't want burgundian Space Marines or anything like that. I want my 6/5/6 Ruler to develop a genius plan how to defeat France, then deciding that he absolutely needs a new hat for just my whole treasury and 3 loans and then being of the opinion, that becoming 40yo is a good point to die to make place for his 0/0/2 4yo heir in a regency (ok, fair enough I don't want exactly this to happen -and it surely doesn't need to focus just on the Ruler, because else I might just play CK2-, but this could be the level of craziness and instability "needed" to give the feeling of true "burgundianess").
- As I mentioned somewhere before I am german, this is the longest text in English I wrote in 2 years, I worked like 9,5h on this text, it is 4.30 in the morning and this is my first post in this forum. So if there are any typos, weird formulations and bad / non-english punctuation or if I violated any rules (which I hope I didn't): Please forgive me it wasn't meant to be like that
Also I'm sorry for this rather longish post and for not being able to make my event suggestions more "in game"-style; I'm sure I will improve in this the more posts / replies I write.
Last but not least: Greetings to everybody who reads this and have an nice weekend
PS: Me: I really need to learn for the test next week.
Also Me: Comes home from buying food, proceeds to "just post a few ideas about: How to make Burgundy great again" - finishes it only 10 hours later
