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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'm impressed by the changes to the islamic world.

But how severe will the relationship penalties/bonuses from opposing schools of law be?

-25? -50? Or even -100?

It could really shake up the muslim world, depending on how severe these penalties are.
 
Judging by the snippet you provided, it seems it's not possible for schools to appear later through event or otherwise. Is this a wrong assumption?
Would it be possible for you to support this, like potential = { has_global_flag = wahhabism_enabled } or something?
 
You should make it so piety gets reduced over time by being below 100% religious unity, and instantly increased a bit when you convert a province to make piety a bit more controllable.
 
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Am I understanding something wrong but doesn't Religious Followers and such at negative piety sound a little off? Like, the negative piety stuff seems somewhat more religious to me now (I'm not expert in Islam so correct me if I'm wrong). If the system doesn't represent the piety of the ruler anymore, shouldn't it be called something else?

I like the icons & artwork.
 
It seems lkike cattle is the new wheat, being very numerous and spread out.
 
Finally!!!!! its about time they added the Islamic schools of thought and I guess the Sufis are regulated to the low piety aspect as I can see Mevlevi order or "Whirling Dervishes" being represented. Hope they flesh it out more with the Sufism and Legalism especially the Sufi-Mysticism aspect as it greatly influenced the Turkish population with leaders such as Haji Bektash Veli (Bektashi order) and Rumi (Mevlevi order) and also West Africans, Indians and Central Asians.
 
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Keep the good work up
 
Am I understanding something wrong but doesn't Religious Followers and such at negative piety sound a little off? Like, the negative piety stuff seems somewhat more religious to me now (I'm not expert in Islam so correct me if I'm wrong). If the system doesn't represent the piety of the ruler anymore, shouldn't it be called something else?

I like the icons & artwork.
The way I understand it, piety no longer represents how pious you are, but the type of piety you are.
 
Any chance of new CBs? Smth like "Eliminate *insert school name here*" or "unite islam under your school"?
That'd be very strange. Historically wars were never fought with such a justification as far as I'm aware. The thing about Muslim jurisprudence is, that they are not considered heresies or sects, they are still, within their parent group, considered as part of the faith. And while usually a single school dominates the religious and legal landscape depending on historic precedence, it's not uncommon to find lawyers of different schools in the same town or city.

For example, a person might get married according to one school's marriage laws but then try to get divorced using a lawyer from a different school, if that would benefit them.
 
No cows in caux, awh :p
Nice touch with the livestock in Iberia though; iberico porc right on the border with portugal :D
I like the school's though!
If one switches to a different religion they lose the school I imagine?
What if one were to pick a school; flip to a different religion and then flip back; will they then be able to pick a new school?