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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.
 
What I like about past eu4's diaries that It's very clear that they are focusing one region which is very good. Mandate was sending very mixed signals; patch vs DLC focus was way off. I kinda hope for Ottoman rule/government gameplay reflecting their true throne fights between sons. Which estates have a big influence over It.
 
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.

Aq Qoyunlu (white sheep turkomans) and Qara Qoyunlu (black sheep turkomans) maybe? :p ;)
 
I got up early to read this, excited about changes to Islam. I'm rather disappointed.

I'm disappointed that the Qizilbash hat isn't explained (unless that's the icon for "you can invite scholars"), though at least I know you'll get to that eventually. I'm disappointed that this expansion doesn't at least provide unique mechanics for Sunnis and Shias. And while I'm happy that the Sunni madhab are finally incorporated, if you can't change your madhab, even at the cost to stability, you don't really have any flexibility save with a slider bar that's slow to change. This is unlike all of the Christian denominations.

Question: historically was there ever any hostility between Sunni madhab as the result of relations between them? If so, that's something I was completely unaware of, and I doubt it was anything like Sunni-Shia hostility, or even conflicts between followers of Sufi orders and more orthodox Sunnis.

On the other hand, I see what you did there in the last sentence. It sounds like AQ and QQ improvements will be discussed in the next dev diary. Obviously new national ideas, but I'm hoping new events too? I'm still very excited about the free patch, but the expansion so far seems underwhelming, and giving the sheep the level of flavor Prussia or even Ethiopia have would be a huge plus in that regard.

And now I'm going back to bed.
 
I guess the old piety versus whatever it was wasn't very fitting for Islam in this era. It was the crossroads Islam stood at near year 1000 not near the year 1444.
Not really sure I feel particularly interested in this system though feels like just more stuff for the powergamers to optimize that doesn't offer me much in making the game more narrative and interesting. Kind of like the whole professionalism thing. Just another button to press every so often just another mana to keep track of. Kind of like what you added to Russia and to Prussia before them.
 
Like options to get bonuses by changing piety, Russian abilities of Third Rome should have side effects. Pure buff from DLC should be sublated.

Is school system tied to DLC? Is inviting scholar only available for one school at once? Will there be no change for Caliph system?
 
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please give the option to change School of Law
You can, just change religion and change religion again. Far to easy if you ask me, being locked in is the only reasonably interesting aspect of it. The only reason you won't just pick the strongest all the time.
Is the turban-wearing older man on one of the alerts in previous DDs related to Ibadi, maybe? :p
Wasn't that already explained last week to be the thing where muslims could convert people using trade power?

If the current effects were not changed, then they -100 piety (full mysticism) will give these bonuses :

−10% Technology cost
+20% National manpower modifier
+20% National tax modifier
Seems odd bonuses for mysticism. Mysticism is inherent to the Asharite school of islam which pushed islam away from scientific progress.
Granted at this point in history the Avicennian school has long been abandoned, but still its odd seeing cheaper tech from something related to the abandonment of logic is the islamic world.
 
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Interesting news. With recent changes to Confucian, Shinto, Orthodox and upcoming patch featuring rework of Islam I would really like to see a rework of Catholicism in near future.
 
Cheers for scholarly DD DDR Jake :D. Piety levels rising (or falling). That 'two ends of the piety spectrum' and Muslim school thing sounds pretty interesting as well :).
 
Seems odd bonuses for mysticism. Mysticism is inherent to the Asharite school of islam which pushed islam away from scientific progress.
Granted at this point in history the Avicennian school has long been abandoned, but still its odd seeing cheaper tech from something related to the abandonment of logic is the islamic world.

It is probably mysticism along the lines of the Sufi-Bektashi tradition, if the icon is any indicator. Definitely not the same as Ghazali-style pseudo-mysticism.
 
So I'm guessing QQ will get new national ideas since they aren't a horde anymore. Since QQ isn't a horde, im guessing AQ won't be either. Hopefully you'll show both new idea sets in the next dev diary.
 
So I'm guessing QQ will get new national ideas since they aren't a horde anymore. Since QQ isn't a horde, im guessing AQ won't be either. Hopefully you'll show both new idea sets in the next dev diary.

They might get a special government type or something.