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EU4 - Development Diary - 10th of November

Hey everyone! So when we introduced the new natives mechanics several of you were asking why we weren’t changing Totemism as well while at it. So since then and while I was working on the Sikh Gurus and Zoroastrianism I figured I should give it a shot and try to give them something as many of you were pointing out, it is one of the major religions at the start of the game and it deserves some love. Be warned a lot of work in progress values & especially really bad coder art will be shown!

Now North America is a big place, and how we are using Totemism in the game is sort of a catch all for several very distinct mythoses and with that also comes the challenge of figuring out flavor that is general enough and fits all of these as well. What I could find as a best candidate for a fun mechanic that could fit for all of these very different cultures were that they all have legendary figures, and the oral tradition of great deeds. Like Gloosecap of the Abenaki, or Esa the Wolf of the Shoshone.

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So now as you progress through the game, you can add one of your previous rulers to your mythos. You can have a maximum of 10 stories added at any point. This costs 100 Diplomatic power but they can also be removed later on for a severe stability hit. It’s not intended to be something that you switch around often but I don’t want to lock you in entirely either.

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Adding an ancestor’s story to your religion will have them provide the personality they had in real life be applied to your country for all future, with some modifications which we will get into in a bit. It will be a weaker version than they had in real life but still a nice bonus for you even as they have died.

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So with this change in order to keep things balanced rulers who follow Totemism will only have one personality, since it will be combined together with the benefits they get from the religion as well. But these are special and they scale with the rulers skill. This does mean that you can get a ruler with 7.5% discipline bonus instead of 5%. This is also to feed into the ancestor stories where not all rulers will actually be useful to be made into a story. This does mean that totemism needs it’s entire own setup of personalities scripted up but we are aiming to try and match the original ones.

The intent is since you have 10 ancestor stories you can collect, each will just provide a bit of the full picture. It's a religion you build up over time by reconnecting to previous rulers you’ve had.

Also here's a preliminary set of values for the Gurus and their teaching. The value next to the Guru's name is applied by the Guru while they are alive. The ones in the lists are their teachings and can be picked by you as the player. These values are still work in progress but I know people been asking for a complete list.
Guru Nanak: +1 Admin Power
  • Share and Consume: -1 Unrest
  • Work Honestly: 5% Production Eff
  • Recite His Name: -2.5% Regiment Cost
Guru Angad: +1 Military Power
  • Gurmukhi Script: -5% Tech Cost
  • Temple Langar: +10% Church Loyalty
  • Wrestling Akhara: +0.1 Yearly Army Professionalism
Guru Amar Das: +1 Diplomatic Power
  • Dasvnandh Collection: +5% Tax Modifier
  • Anand Karaj: +1 Diplomatic Reputation
  • Sanghat Equality: +10% Nobles Loyalty
Guru Ram Das: +1 Admin Power
  • Legitimize Inheritance: +0.25 Legitimacy (or +0.1 Rep Trad, etc. etc.)
  • Scripture Hymns: +0.5 Prestige
  • Masand System: +10% Manpower Modifier
Guru Arjan: +1 Diplomatic Power
  • Adi Granth: +10% Institution Spread
  • The Abode of God: +10% Rel Unity
  • Martyrdom: 5% Land Morale
Hargobind: +1 Military Power
  • Throne of the Timeless One: Same as Legitimize Inheritance
  • Protection of the Poor: -0.025 War Exhaustion
  • Miri and Piri: +2.5% Discipline
Guru Har Rai: +1 Diplomatic Power
  • Impartial Manjis: -0.05 Corruption
  • The Fragrance of a Flower: +10% Improve Relations
  • One Guru: +5% Nobles Loyalty
Guru Har Krishan: +1 Diplomatic Power
  • Treat the Sick: +1 Monarch Admin Skill
  • Illiterate Recites Saloks: +1 Monarch Diplomatic Skill
  • Young Humility: +1 Monarch Military Skill
Guru Tegh Bahadur: +1 Admin Power
  • The Word of Sikh: +1 Missionary
  • All Kings must Pass: +2 Tolerance of Heretics
  • Resist Persecution: +1 Hostile Attrition
Guru Gobind Singh: +1 Admin Power
  • Pluralism: -10% Advisor Cost
  • Dharam Yudh: 50% War Taxes Cost
  • The Khalsa Sikh: +0.1 Yearly Army Professionalism
Guru Granth Sahib: -50% State Maintenance Cost, -25% Regiment Drill Loss
  • Eternally Living Guru: -10% Development Cost
  • Divine Justice: 10% Trade Efficiency
  • The Unchanging Writing: 50% Drill Gain Modifier

And that is it for today! Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next week!
 
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Will you do something about Animism?
And what about the Australia rework you teased in September? When can we expect the new provinces, tags and Aborigine religion to be revealed? Sorry if this is a lot, but i'm waiting for this since weeks, and I want to be sure I'm not the only one remembering this was a thing.
 
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This is amazing, adding 10 more reasons why I can't wait for this expansion.

Couple questions. Can stories repeat traits? If I end up with 3 Strict monarchs over my campaign, can I have 3 separate Discipline boosts? Moreover, how does this work with republics? Can we really have a new ruler every 4 years constantly rolling in new traits to add to the collection?

Yepp on both. Though with Republics several of those won't show up as the "level" of those republican leaders will be too low.
 
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Very nice, that you gave totemist a new chance! I really like this unique way for them. Maybe there is even room to rename their personality trait while you making a new list (like is a good hunter for example) and add some new rule trait events or American native/ totemist events.

I guess the mechanic will let me remember more the good and the bad rulers of my Playtime - thank you for this Addition. Bad traits are still in?

Yeah bad traits are still in.
 
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This seems a bit like power creep to me. Totemism will be the strongest religion by far.
Eh, I dunno. Unless you get an extremely unlikely string of god-tier rulers with god-tier traits, this will probably be around Nahuatl-tier, though it’ll take centuries longer to actually get fully powered-up. The way he designed it seems very reasonable to me.
 
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I like these changes to minor religions, I wish there was at least a way to represent biggest minority religion though.

For example when colonising new world conversion of these territories was a gradual and sometimes syncretic process. Maybe last converted religion can become a "minority religion" and provide both some bonuses and maluses if they are an accepted culture? You could just represent it as a smaller icon next to the big religion icon in the province tab. Similarly Zoroastrianism and Sikhism were both represented as minority religions in foreign provinces.
 
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Will you do something about Animism?

Perfectly, the rest of Animist provinces would be replaced by actual religions of those regions. Shamanism (which is now fully replaced) and Animism were always just placeholders for religions deemed "not yet worth implementing".
 
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Good on you for listening to the community on this! I thought that it would have been Animism that would get the rework since you had ruled this one out. It has been a pleasant surprise to say the least!
 
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Well, that's unexpected. I expect to see lots of "[Totemist-OPM-name] OP, fast ruler kill - 10 dead in 1 yaer!!1" threads to pop up.

I find it very nice to see Totemism getting a mechanic - it's a very widespread religion in terms of number of tags that always seemed like a sadly lacking pick. I hope that the next juicy thing will be Animism.

Maybe rulers should rule for a minimum of 10 years to have a trait be passed on so as to avoid exploiting the system.
 
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That idea for Totemnism is super creative and cool, but I do worry on the RNG-heavy aspects of it. You are rolling for leaders personality traits AND for their stats to buff the religion. If you've been lucky to always get a 6-mil discipline ruler, you'll be the insanest country in the world. If all you've gotten was 1 to 3 diplo-trait rulers, then your religion might likely suck.
So maybe:
- Expand the pool with the ruler and their consort.
- Use the skill as threshold, not for scaling. Using the personality for the religion is only possible at 4+, and at 6, it can be done while the ruler is living. For consorts, only at 5+ they can be used in the religion, and never while living.
- The bonus has a static number, and can be chosen only twice. So you can get 2 times 2.5% discipline that way.
- The ruler and consort personalities are used for determining the bonus. They can only stand for one bonus. The modifier that gets chosen will depend on 1) the personality traits they had 2) the monarch skill points (if ADM skill highest-->prioritize the adm trait) 3) age at which they acquired the trait (if ADM highest, but two ADM traits, chose the first one acquired; or if multiple skills the highest and multiple possible modifiers, choose the the first acquired) 4) which bonuses you already have in your religion (to avoid having that third discipline ruler for your religion). 5) if for some reason all that fails to give a modifier, use a fallback modifier like "-5% [pointtype] tech cost". 7) if even both of those have been used: too bad I guess?

This should hopefully increase the pool to choose from, and reduce the extreme randomness of the religion. Plus, it should mostly work fine with the current way monarchs/... work now, so no extra personality scripting?
 
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Wow, these religion mechanic changes/additions have been really good! Thank you Groogy!
One thing I'd think would be interesting is if each culture/culture group had a starting ancestor like Glooscap, Wisakedjak, Wakan Tanka, etc. which has a better bonus than rulers. There are certainly plenty of Native American creator gods which we know about and can use.
 
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Me: *busy making a mod updating some of the "unexpanded religions *
PDX: Hey we're updating Sikhism+Zoroastrianism

Me: okay, so now I can focus more on Totemism, Animism and Judaism
Pdx: so.... We're also doing Totemism now
 
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Depending on RNG this can become quite strong (another reason to go republic)

Funny how the religions which were eventually suppressed are often much stronger than the big religions which spread around the world.
 
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Funny how the religions which were eventually suppressed are often much stronger than the big religions which spread around the world.
I like the balance, really. Abrahamic religions are still going to be vastly better for something like a One Faith because of all of their extra missionaries, and as far as I can tell will generally keep their relative advantage in higher Tolerance of the True Faith bonuses, but the powerful minor/pagan religions give us the option to play something more local and more wild.
 
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This seems a bit like power creep to me. Totemism will be the strongest religion by far.
Only if one goes wiled with killing rulers and even then its heavily rng dependent, one has no control over what traits the ruler gets. One may very well end up with +X spy defense, - X construction cost and +X ship durability for the first 50 years.
 
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@Groogy very importsnt question: what happens if i switch frim another religion to totemist? Would seem insane, that the ruler who embraced totemism wouldn't be able to be selected because his personality was "to diverse".
I'd implement a simple event that will let you chose one of the old leader traits and let it be exchanged for the totemism version upon changing religion to totemism.
 
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Could you reduce the penalty Pagan nations have from converting to a different religion through decision? While new mechanics for Totemist are good, it would also be nice if converting to a Christian religion was possible as well. Currently it costs 4 stability and is much worse than forcing rebels to convert you. It's weird to have Totemist be this religion that gets better over time and abandoning it cost so much compared to using rebels.
 
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