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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.
 
Just to be clear: those bonuses from piety have been in game since release.
What's new with the dlc would be the school bonuses and the piety actions on the far ends.
So mysticism will give tech cost reduction? I can't match mysticism with technology. As you agreed, if piety slider will mean type of piety, negative piety shouldn't give tech cost reduction.
 
They should do something like this for reformed and Protestant nations, with the individual denominations. You could have a Dutch Reformed Holland who could invite an Anabaptist minister from Germany to get some bonus or another.
 
England usually become way to powerful way to early (and far to railroaded to become a major player while in reality it was because of a series of lucky coincidences that led them to end up as such), and denmark has loads of beneficial events and starts with two personal unions which they unlike in reality have no problem whatsoever holding on to.
Both needs nerfing not buffing.
 
England usually become way to powerful way to early (and far to railroaded to become a major player while in reality it was because of a series of lucky coincidences that led them to end up as such), and denmark has loads of beneficial events and starts with two personal unions which they unlike in reality have no problem whatsoever holding on to.
Both needs nerfing not buffing.

There's no reason to need England. The AI plays them worse than Spain/Portugal/France.

Mostly because, as we all know, the AI "cannot into boats" to (literally) save its life...
 
The French region was far more powerful than the English region in terms of manpower and production, however it was still pretty feudal at the start of the game while the Engish had a much better administration

The thing is, EU4 doesn't represent stuff like that at all, the best governments are horde and tribal despostism, then despotic monarchy (ignoring special governments like revolutionary or prussia)

I think EU4 needs a rebalancing of government systems where later governments are clearly better than earlier ones, with hordes and tribals being better at early game expansion but much more unstable and reforming them should be necessary
 
There's no reason to need England. The AI plays them worse than Spain/Portugal/France.

Mostly because, as we all know, the AI "cannot into boats" to (literally) save its life...
Well England wasn't a naval power until the later half of this game and not the naval power until after the war of Spanish succession. The reason no one invaded England was 1. logistics 2. England was considered an insignificant backwater.
 
Hanbali, granting them lowered Aggressive Expansion Impact.

Their Neighbours are Yas - also Hanbali, and Hormus who belong to the Maliki School, reducing Dev Cost.

Thank you for the info. Might I suggest you add a school for Ibadi, called Ibadi that gives diplomatic reputation +1 or trade steering +20% or something of the like that fits in with Ibadi teachings. They do after all, have their own school. Alternatively it can be based on Khawarij, which is its predecessor which was pretty extremist, so maybe some discipline or morale? :p
 
Thank you for the info. Might I suggest you add a school for Ibadi, called Ibadi that gives diplomatic reputation +1 or trade steering +20% or something of the like that fits in with Ibadi teachings. They do after all, have their own school. Alternatively it can be based on Khawarij, which is its predecessor which was pretty extremist, so maybe some discipline or morale? :p

Weren't the Khawarij gone for quite some time?
 
Thank you for the info. Might I suggest you add a school for Ibadi, called Ibadi that gives diplomatic reputation +1 or trade steering +20% or something of the like that fits in with Ibadi teachings. They do after all, have their own school. Alternatively it can be based on Khawarij, which is its predecessor which was pretty extremist, so maybe some discipline or morale? :p
Isn't that already the religious bonus for Ibadi ?
 
Weren't the Khawarij gone for quite some time?

Today they are extinct, but were they gone in 1444? No idea honestly, it was just a thought I had incase Ibadi wasn't around

Isn't that already the religious bonus for Ibadi ?

Ibadi gets +5% navy morale, and the school they follow is Hanbali, which obviously isn't the correct one, but rather just to give them a school since everyone else has one.