EU4 - Development Diary - 15th of October 2019

[Ivan21]

What about "XXX joins the Republic" events? Will they be changed or will AI consider this possibility when winning war? Currently in most of my games Austria after winning war vs Netherlands doesn't take back its cores but just releases e.g. Holland and Utrecht, and they join the republic in a couple months, which makes this war pointless. Or maybe non-existing Dutch minors will finally lose their cores once the Netherlands appear?

 

[taninamdar]

I always thought that moving your capital to the lowlands region as Spain (or Austria) is "too easy" of a solution. To my knowledge, there is no penalty for doing this and it instantly disables the Dutch revolt, which seems quite unrealistic to me. For the tag that receives the Burgundian Inheritance, can we add a penalty for not having your capital in the core territory (i.e., Iberia for Spain, Austria for Austria etc.) or with primary culture? Then it wouldn't be a magical solution to stop the Dutch revolts.

Secondly—and this is a bit of pet peeve of mine—the situation of Dutch revolts against Spanish is quite similar to the phenomenon of Maratha revolts against Mughals. Can we also implement a similar disaster for that?

 

[Charles F.Muntz]

The Dutch incident sounds like it'll be a nice change. Hate having to avoid the area just because of the endless rebels.

Out of curiosity, is there any news on wether changes to custom nations ended up being within the scope of the update?

 

[Badesumofu]

Yes Imperial Incidents are DLC locked, but in cases when we rework old stuff like the Dutch Revolt and Shadow Kingdom they'll still be available to people without the DLC by conventional means.

This again? Surely it would make more sense to put the game mechanic of Imperial Incidents into the patch but put all the actual new incidents into the DLC like Stellaris would? That way you don't have to make two versions every time you make a new Incident for a new DLC like the problem you now have with Government Reforms.

It seems like this is a problem that has been solved. Put the game system in the patch and the new content for that game system into the DLC. That way the DLC retains its value and you can add more incidents later on in future DLCs if it seems worthwhile. By putting game systems themselves into the DLCs you end up with 40918742 different game systems that aren't allowed to interact with each other and are unlikely to ever be revisited and revised. Or they will be but when they are, they'll be made baseline like what happened with Estates.

Like you realised that you had this problem with Estates and made them baseline, but then in the very same patch you added Government Reforms and made the same mistake again. Now every time you want to make a new unique government you have to do it twice.

I own every DLC (except Golden Century) and I'll likely buy every one you ever make for EU4 (provided you don't make one like GC again) so this isn't about wanting stuff for free. But if you're making new and interesting game systems then I want the possibility that they will have new stuff made for them in the future. I want the possibility that if you make some other new and cool game system in the future that could link into the ones you're making now that that will be possible.

 

[Qantrix]

Why the assumption that 100% of the time the Netherlands have a Catholic foreign overlord, while the Netherlands are Reformed/Protestant? It may very well be 1/3 of the time, because half the time the Lowlands do not have a Catholic foreign overlord, while the Lowlands are Reformed/Protestant.

Just for reference:
Burgundian Inheritance may not happen, leaving Netherlands divided between small states or united under Burgundy that accepts all Dutch cultures.
Burgundian Inheritance may happen but the inheritor may be tolerant.
Burgundian Inheritance may happen but the Lowlands may end up fragmented afterwards.
Burgundian Inheritance may happen but the Dutch may be let go by the inheritor.
Netherlands may form by other means.
Reformation may be very successful or very unsuccessful, resulting in no religion tensions in the region.
And obviously, that is 1/3 of the time that the Netherlands are successful. They may very well be unsuccessful if they are brought low by another power.

I fully agree. I should also mention that the formation of the Netherlands as it would come to be, was by no means some historical certainty.

While the years of Burgundian rule had created more unity and some centralization among the Seventeen Provinces it was still a cultural patchwork and there was no real 'national' sense of belonging. Also made clear by how the southern and northern Netherlands would end up having very divergent paths despite belonging to the same union and the Dutch revolt having its nexus in Flanders, Wallonia and Brabant.

Culturally provinces such as Limburg and Gelre had far more in common with Cologne, Cleves and Julich than with Flanders, Hainaut or Friesland. And vice versa Charles the Bold on a successful campaign in the Rhineland could have very well led to a Netherlands further down the line including those lands. Those lands also had more in common with much of the Netherlands than with say Austria or Bavaria.

Netherlands appearing in about 1/3 of the simulations seems about right. Netherlands falling apart into independent counties and duchies under the HRE is just as plausible. Or the Netherlands being the center of a Burgundy which is an Imperial Kingdom within the HRE, or an independent kingdom outside of the HRE and having it's own path of development.

For a formed Netherlands some more flexibility in its path would be nice. As a largely littoral state some sort of naval focus would be clear but historically it could have just as well become a monarchy with its capital in Brussels or Antwerp.

 

[sprites]

i hope there'll be some more interesting news at pdxcon

 

[Deferionuz]

Is it possible for the empire to have it's own mission tree of sorts in addition to the reforms? Missions to do stuff such as break up France into the smaller duchies and add them to the HRE. Same with Italy, and parts of Eastern Europe. Another idea is to make missions to develop provinces either by development or buildings. For example, add the Balkan to the HRE and then build forts along the ottoman border. Or along the border with Russia / Spain.

The mission trees are a fun play experience and have a second mission tree as the emperor gives you a reason to care about being the emperor even if playing a country such as Brandenburg into Prussia.

 

[Thorum]

Glad to see three very outdated and anoying systems getting an overdue redo between the last DD and this one

 

[Miroku20X6]

Regarding Shadow Empire

1. There should be a diplomatic Emperor action similar to that for Enforce Religious Unity. Enforcing religion needs to be unlocked (e.g. Winning League War), depends on diplo rep and other relations with target nation, and costs 1 IA. If it is granted, then there is negative relations with others of the same religion as the target nation had been. Refusing to convert grants Emperor CB vs target. Imagine that Emperor gets similar action for "Rein In". Unlocked by the 1460s event or whatever. Would depend on diplo rep and other relations (RM, alliance, opinion, etc) with target, and would also cost 1 IA. If granted, then all remaining HRE nations with Italian culture (or geographically in Italy?) not yet "reined in" would get negative opinion modifier. If refused, then given unique CB for rein in. This would help Emperor deal with non-adjacent Italian nations directly instead of no-cb or else having to deal with stuff like warring their allies for now reason just to war with them indirectly.

2. Rather than simply "winning a war" with the Italian nations, which could be as meaningless as taking a single ducat, and possibly just from war leader and not even target nation directly; I propose making "Rein In" a peace term. Cost could be something like 10 WS, like concede defeat. Maybe up to 30 if felt needed for balance. Just seems like throwing an actual peace term makes sense more than an arbitrary "victory".

 

[TheDarkMaster]

Are there partial rewards for keeping Italy in the HRE? You said it was +25 IA for keeping all of them, it would make sense if this scaled between +25 and -50 depending on what percentage was kept inside the empire. Also, is there anything done about stragglers? Such as if Florence lost a war, but the rest of Italy left.

 

[DominusNovus]

Does this give Venice players a back door into the Empire?
Step 1: Establish good relations with the Emperor, join Empire.
Step 2: Snipe at Ottomans until they attack you, calling in the Empire.
Step 3: Profit.

 

[LordHoth]

Secondly—and this is a bit of pet peeve of mine—the situation of Dutch revolts against Spanish is quite similar to the phenomenon of Maratha revolts against Mughals. Can we also implement a similar disaster for that?

Also for the Cossacks in Zaporoszhye perhaps, who though always unsuccessful, loved to revolt and rebel against everyone if their overlords became too weak.

 

[Horn and Ivory]

Also for the Cossacks in Zaporoszhye perhaps, who though always unsuccessful, loved to revolt and rebel against everyone if their overlords became too weak.

The Catalans too.

 

[Vince75]

It does indeed

Could we then have some countries not involved in a total war ? Currently it's either total war or not involved.

 

[holyvigil]

I fully agree. I should also mention that the formation of the Netherlands as it would come to be, was by no means some historical certainty.

While the years of Burgundian rule had created more unity and some centralization among the Seventeen Provinces it was still a cultural patchwork and there was no real 'national' sense of belonging. Also made clear by how the southern and northern Netherlands would end up having very divergent paths despite belonging to the same union and the Dutch revolt having its nexus in Flanders, Wallonia and Brabant.

Culturally provinces such as Limburg and Gelre had far more in common with Cologne, Cleves and Julich than with Flanders, Hainaut or Friesland. And vice versa Charles the Bold on a successful campaign in the Rhineland could have very well led to a Netherlands further down the line including those lands. Those lands also had more in common with much of the Netherlands than with say Austria or Bavaria.

Netherlands appearing in about 1/3 of the simulations seems about right. Netherlands falling apart into independent counties and duchies under the HRE is just as plausible. Or the Netherlands being the center of a Burgundy which is an Imperial Kingdom within the HRE, or an independent kingdom outside of the HRE and having it's own path of development.

For a formed Netherlands some more flexibility in its path would be nice. As a largely littoral state some sort of naval focus would be clear but historically it could have just as well become a monarchy with its capital in Brussels or Antwerp.

This is largely akin to saying the formation of Germany in its present form was not certain to happen.

Although its form would certainly have varied; perhaps Austria would have joined if they weren't as strong or perhaps Austria could have been the one to form Germany but it is highly likely almost to a certainty that a centralized power would come out of that region.

In the Netherlands if France was not the centralized ruler of Burgundy its highly likely Burgundy or France would have lost even more land to the Netherlands. So I am not convinced by the argument that the Netherlands should be less likely to form due to the possibility of them being weaker because the inverse was just as likely they could have formed in an even stronger form than they did historically if France was weaker.

Speculating on the likelihood of them forming only lends to the argument that we don't know and maybe the disaster should affect more than it currently does.

 

[zdlugasz]

Did I get it rigth? - won ANY war against AI (even secondary participant) and later relation do not matter OR high relations. It would be absurdly easy for human. I guess that within first 50 years I could do it against ALL princes (military condition), not only Italian (how many, 8? as Montferrat will be annexed anyway)

Edit: will princes get at least some negative modifiers because Emperor is trying to rein them in? Some ticking-something?

 

[Bandua_of_Gallaecia]

With regards to the Dutch revolts -

Does this disaster need to be constrained to The Netherlands? It strikes me that this could be used as a generic disaster where any culture fulfils those requirements within a nation

If it was applied as a generic disaster expanding in general would be a massive headache and greatly displease the very vocal blobing community (personally i agree expanding should be harder, and empires should colapse and fragment more easily and often, but opinions in this subject are very divided).

I guess, if the answer to that is “no” then why have it for the Dutch?

Because not every conquered people waged a successful 80 years war of independence which changed the balance of power in Europe.
The Dutch revolts was more of an exception than the norm.

Beyond railroading history, is there any good reason for it to exist?)

As this is an historical game, i am in favour of railroading history as much as possible as long as the player is still given agency to change the historical outcomes.

 

[Chief of Staff]

Does that mean that there will finally be a Join War code effect? That would be phenomenal!

It does indeed

That's awesome! I was waiting for effect like this. But I do have a question about these events that invites the rivals to join the Dutch independence war ... how does the AI decide on whether to join the war or not? Unless you add in multiple ai_factor instances to account for various things (income, war exhaustion, global unrest, stability, etc.) to take into consideration for the AI players before joining the war which probably can end up being a pretty lengthy list. Does this imply that AI can now decide on which event options to pick independently of the ai_factor? Or do ai_factor still control the AI choosing the options?

 

[TheCrimsonMajor]

What will happen to the Dutch minors if they exist when the revolt fires? Will they still get the option to join the Netherlands?

 

[master_kong]

I always thought that moving your capital to the lowlands region as Spain (or Austria) is "too easy" of a solution. To my knowledge, there is no penalty for doing this and it instantly disables the Dutch revolt, which seems quite unrealistic to me. For the tag that receives the Burgundian Inheritance, can we add a penalty for not having your capital in the core territory (i.e., Iberia for Spain, Austria for Austria etc.) or with primary culture? Then it wouldn't be a magical solution to stop the Dutch revolts.

Actually I'd prefer a real mechanic for this, such as M&T communication efficiency mechanic. This way distance between capital and rest of the lands would actually matter and we may not need such arbitrary restrictions including moving capital to another continent.

That's awesome! I was waiting for effect like this. But I do have a question about these events that invites the rivals to join the Dutch independence war ... how does the AI decide on whether to join the war or not? Unless you add in multiple ai_factor instances to account for various things (income, war exhaustion, global unrest, stability, etc.) to take into consideration for the AI players before joining the war which probably can end up being a pretty lengthy list. Does this imply that AI can now decide on which event options to pick independently of the ai_factor? Or do ai_factor still control the AI choosing the options?

I guess they will just join the war. Dynamic calculation for AI in events would be great though but i don't think so.