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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.
 
We already have a DLC only dedicated to Islam, so it would probably be better to have a DLC focusing on the Near East, and some additions to Islam, than a second DLC focused on only the muslim religions
 
Gotland was not a big deal in this era, you're likely thinking of an earlier period. At start it is notable as the base for the deposed Erik who used it as a pirate base and that is also how it would later be used by the Danish navy. Commercially Gotland did not do well anymore at the start of our game (and had been declining for over a 100 year already) and it only got further worse over time.
To be completely honest it could be argued that the current starting development overvalues it as it is.

The Amber export in the Teutonic Order on the other hand was one of the bigger backbones of their economy (though it decreased in value after the reformation).

I was actually in Malbork yesterday and they had a museum dedicated to amber and amber trade and appearently one of the main reason they invaded Danzig was to gain control of the amber production/trade vested in the city, did you guys consider have Danzig make gems aswell?

Interesting that you mention Eric of Pomerania, there is an evenmore interesting entry in the history file for gotland, that it was considered making a pirate state of the island!
 
So the Ibadi faith doesn't have any religious schools?

Ibadi nations are more flexible, with access to both Sunni and Shiia Schools. In 1444, Mzab follows the Maliki School, Oman the Hanbali and Pate the Shafi'i. Newly created/defected/converted Ibadi nations will also be able to pick, through event, which school they follow.

Two questions:
Can Shia nations invite Sunni scholars (and inversely)?

Yes, Scholars of heretical schools can be invited, but with a low piety requirement.

I'm really hoping for some changes or new mechanics to Persia, loving these Muslim changes

In one of the future dev diaries we'll take a look at the Persian situation.

@DDRJake

Can a "hated" school exist within the same major denomination? Ex can Maliki school hate the Hanbali school? If so does that change how piety is calculated for DOWs? Will I gain piety for declaring on same denomination but rival school?

Also for the Religious Followers\Enforce Religious Adherence actions, you said that will change piety by 50. Is that resetting piety to 50 or reducing by 50 points from you current piety score?

Schools can hate each other, even within the same denomination, as can schools from different denominations come to respect each other. Piety however, is still dependent on fighting heretics/heathens or same-faiths.

The piety change always brings it 50 towards the centre.

is this payed fetures are part of the free update ?:)

Legalism/Mysticism and the accompanying new events are free parts of the 1.23 Update. Muslim Schools and the abilities to Call on Religious Followers and Enforce Faithful Adherence are part of the expansion which will accompany 1.23.

If a nation other than muslim converts how is it its school picked ? Lets say commonwealth changes to sunni will it get a choice to pick a school or will it get some school matchin their national ideas and ambitions ?

They will get an event shortly after their conversion to pick a school from their respective faith.

Maybe we get updates culture and religion maps for the middle east next week?

Duly noted.
 
I was actually in Malbork yesterday and they had a museum dedicated to amber and amber trade and appearently one of the main reason they invaded Danzig was to gain control of the amber production/trade vested in the city, did you guys consider have Danzig make gems aswell?
Yeah I remember that, I think I got a amber lion or maybe bear from their giftshop.
Truth be told there's amber all across the southern Baltic sea coast, my grandfather's family came from the area aroudn Wolgast and I seem to recall they had amber over there too. And the danes certainly have it, when the Amber room was built in Köningsberg it was a danish amber mastercraftsman who built it.
 
I feel like England should get more Wool, it's basically what they were famous for, the Flemish were the ones who turned the wool into cloth. Things were like this until the middle 17th century at least.
 
This has been one interesting thread to follow, especially the discussion on the piety/religion system of the game, what is considered pious and what isn't.
The way I have seen it, the religion tab represents the states/governments/courts view on religion, not the reality on the field (in the provinces), where the population of a province might be protestant/muslim/whatever. Thus, the tab represents, to me at least, what is sponsored and propagated by the state to be the accepted expression religiosity of it's citizens. Whether some decisions are actually pious to some, or impious to others, is sometimes completely subjective, and debatable, as seen in this thread. In game, players are given the choice to choose what kind of religion to support in their state, and a lot the times, that decision is dictated by the pros of supporting a certain denomination, like in real life sometimes it has.
 
anonymity does make many spill out their unfavorable opinion without fear
much more easy to tell who are the ones that can or worth to have a real conversation with
I feel it's worth having a conversation with anyone who can weigh things from different perspectives, and have a leveled discussion. Even though it might be easier to judge/praise someone when they "show their true colors", on the other side of it, it might lead to condemning someone before any actual worthwhile conversation has taken place. It's like in some political discussions, where the opposing speaker is being judged for his/her political affiliation before anyone gets the chance to notice that they have a lot in common in some views.
 
Since enquiries are being answered, I have two more half-enquiries-half-suggestions, which fall into domain of @Trin Tragula

1. Gdańsk/Danzig's trade good. The city is of course best known as a grain port, and while grain was sure produced in the province as well, the main product there were urban goods. And I belive that the trade good of a province should be what is produced in there, and not what is transported through there.
After incorporation into Poland, the city, already a major one, saw steady growth, reaching nearly 80000 population in XVII century; and while it wasn't Paris or Venice, it was still the largest city of not only PLC but also entire Baltic.
It became sort of a commercial Mecca, luring all kinds of artisans. The city produced jewelry(Amber), weapons and metalware(importing raw materials from Sweden), glassware, cloth, naval supplies, refined furniture, and all other products you could then need, even those one does not usually think off, like herbal vodkas(which were belived to be medicines). So, is there any particular reason why the province is doomed to grain?
Currently in EU4, as the AI and player develops, by the end of XVI century, Gdańsk, while still valued for its trade power, gives an impression of medicore agricultural province, because there is no incentive to develop in there.

2. Volhynia-Podolia. I assume that the provinces there get livestock because of a relatively sparse population in 1444. However, I belive that when it comes to the entire EU4 timespan, they would be much better represented with grain. Fertile soil caused the landscape of the area to became dominated by magnates' latifundia, and their owners prefered extensive grain farms, what proved profitable enough for them ( a single magnate could afford private armies of few thousands men). Keeping that in mind, grain and its forcelimit bonus could be a better option.

And since I already bother You, two more straightforward suggestions.

1. Iron/Glass for Sandomierz province. Within its borders lies Old-Polish Industrial Region, which was an area of metal and glass working.
2. Salt for either Przemyśl or Halicz. Saltworks around Drohobycz produced salt equal to 25% of production in Wieliczka-Bochnia(Kraków), which was quite a lot.
 
To anyone who wants to discuss trade goods, feel free to post trade good suggestions in the suggestions forum :)
Also I will note that there will be new trade good events for all the new goods, and some old prices might have been tweaked a bit as well...
 
Currently in EU4, as the AI and player develops, by the end of XVI century, Gdańsk, while still valued for its trade power, gives an impression of medicore agricultural province, because there is no incentive to develop in there
It's a dual ICT estuary and the only ICT in it's tradenode. I think they have already overstated the importance of Danzig.
It's also both ICT and farmlands both which make developing it cheaper. I could see it's trade good being made amber if another ICT is added in the trade node. I would argue Gotland but as I said earlier Riga or Kalmar would work to, perhaps even Reval.

edit: Actually best way to improve Danzig might be to make them part of the empire, which they should be. Perhaps the should be a vassal of the TO in 1444 to, they should really be a free imeprial city but they can't be since they have to at least be a teutonic vassal and vassals can't be free imperial cities.
 
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It's a dual ICT estuary and the only ICT in it's tradenode. I think they have already overstated the importance of Danzig.
It's also both ICT and farmlands both which make developing it cheaper. I could see it's trade good being made amber if another ICT is added in the trade node. I would argue Gotland but as I said earlier Riga or Kalmar would work to, perhaps even Reval.

Riga really deserves to be a center of trade as an important hanseatic league member and later second largest city of the Swedish Empire

@Trin Tragula it seems the province of Cassel now produces glass. I'm just curious, what does that represent? As far as I know the northern part of Hesse was always rather poor compared to the southern part and mostly agricultural. Also minor nitpicking: while the province is correctly named Cassel its province capital is currently named Kassel, when this is a 20th century change and even in German the official spelling was Cassel during EU4 period
 
We already have a DLC only dedicated to Islam, so it would probably be better to have a DLC focusing on the Near East, and some additions to Islam, than a second DLC focused on only the muslim religions

That one was not an expansion, and the claim that a religion/region touched by an expansion should not be touched by another is ridiculous. If something good can be added where it is missing, then it should be added.
 
but EU4 is nearly 400 years long as appose to around 10 (i don't play HOI4) i just think the point of institutions is that tec origns can change. Islamic colonialism or global trade in alexandria or even spawn the enlightenment . just seams odd to give a penalty to something that might happen in your game , it's not like these nations need a nerf

It would be to push for the Great Divergence and present the historical route of the East during the game's timeframe.

Indeed. Also, just pointing out that everyone is biased; it's figuring out just how and in what way it affects their statements/actions that makes one a good historian.

So then what is your version of why the West overtook the East?

Ferguson's bottom line in that subject is that there was a discrepency between Islam and Western philosophy in 11th-13th centuries. Later on this caused a divergence between East and West. No Renaissance led to no Scientific Revolution. No Scientific Revolution led to no Enlightenment. No Enlightenment led to no Industrial Revolution. By the mid 19th century, the Ottoman Empire was the "Sick Man of Europe".
 
To anyone who wants to discuss trade goods, feel free to post trade good suggestions in the suggestions forum :)
Also I will note that there will be new trade good events for all the new goods, and some old prices might have been tweaked a bit as well...

Can you/someone explain to me, what the criterion for a province getting this or that trade good is? Is it indeed only historical accuracy? I mean Stockholm produces grain and next to it is Närke with iron. Why the hell should i develop Stockholm? Shouldnt Stockholm get a more fitting trade good?
 
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.
Ideally going along with one or both of an HRE rework and proper dynastic inheritance, both of which would be greatly appreciated. As it is the two systems are highly restricted and far less engaging than they could be.
 
Does the glass in Metz refers to the crystal manufactory in Baccarat ?
If so wasn't this a late 1700 creation ? And shouldn't it be in Lorraine rather then in Metz ? With Metz keeping the iron as the iron deposit are mostly north of the whole duchy of Lorraine.