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EU4 - Development Diary - 17th of April 2018

Good day and welcome. By the time you are reading this message, I will be long gone. This message should go live at 10am on Tuesday 17th April but I am writing this some days before. Having already snapped at several months of sustained subzero temperatures in this heathen place, I am taking to the skies and will be enjoying the blazing sun in Florida for a three week vacation. Know that if you do find me making posts here, it is as I am laying by a pool sipping a drink not out of thirst, but out of needing to actually cool down for the first time in half a year. In my stead, @Groogy will be more than happy to elaborate on the mechanical/design changes and @Trin Tragula will be on dev diary duty to talk about what he does best.

But the grim reality of Scandinavian life aside, let's look at our final in a three-parter dev diary on the Government Changes coming along. We've already elaborated how they work as well as Monarchy reforms in Part One, then checked out Republics in Part Two. Today we wrap up by checking out the remaining government types: Theocracies and Tribes.

Theocratic Reforms:

  • Leadership
    • Clergy: 5% Tax Modifier
    • Monastic Order: -20% Fort Maintenance
    • (Papal States only) Pope: +1 Prestige, +1 Tolerance of True Faith
  • Internal vs External Mission
    • Internal Mission: +2 tolerance of true faith
    • External Mission: -20% Warscore against other religions
  • Divine Cause
    • Safeguard Holy Sites: +1 Prestige
    • Combat Heresy: 10% Morale
    • Expel heathens: 5% Development cost
  • Clergy in Administration
    • Subservient Administrators: +1 Free [HIDDENS] (almost missed this one)
    • Religious Administrators: -10% Stability cost
  • Secularise?
    • Maintain Religious Head of State: +10% Absolutism
    • (Muslim) Hereditary Religious Leadership: gain Feudal Theocracy abilities
    • Crown [Root.Monarch.GetName]: Turn into a monarchy, lose 2 reforms
    • Proclaim Republic, lose 2 reforms
Theocracies will be able to shape what sort of religious government hey wish to be and, instead of simply having the decision to secularize, can decide if they want to become a republic or Monarchy at the end of their reforms (keeping some of their reform progress that can be immediately used to pass Monarchy/Republic reforms) or double down on keeping a religious government. For owners of Cradle of Civilization, regular Sunni Theocracies will be able to adopt Feudal Theocracy mechanics as their final reform if preferred. For the likes of Ardabil, they will have a special starting reform which has these mechanics pre-unlocked.

Looking over to our friends the Tribal nations. We wanted to make the path from Tribal to settled nation more exciting than being an ADM sink and rail-roading of National Ideas. They are offered several choices of where to direct their nations.

Tribal Reforms:
  • Tribal Administration
    • Nomadic - Enables Steppe Nomad mechanics, all old nomad bonuses. only available for 1444 nomadic nations.
    • Federation - Enables Federation mechanics. - 5 years of separatism. Only available for the previously defined Tribal Federations.
    • Despotism: -10% Core Creation cost
    • Kingdom: +20% Vassal Income
  • Cultural Values
    • Martial Society: +15% Manpower
    • Civil Society: +5% Tax
  • Religion v secular
    • Religious Societies: -10% Stability cost
    • Lip-Service: -20% Land Maintenance Modifier
  • Modernization
    • Centralize Powers: +3 States, +10 Max Absolutism
    • Retain Tribal Hierarchy: -5% Core Creation Cost -5% Stability cost
  • REFORM:
    • Become Monarchy - Lose 4 Reforms, become Monarchy
    • Become Republic - Lose 4 reforms, become Republic
    • Become Theocracy - Lose 4 reforms, become Theocracy
    • Become Horde - Become Steppe Nomad. Use Nomadic mechanics.
All values seen are subject to balance changes and tweaking at this early stage of development and are expected to change. Despotism vs Kingdom, I'm looking at you.

With Tribes you are now given more control over how (and if you even wish to) reform your nation, complete with the ability to embrace horde life as a nation not blessed with Steppe Nomad mechanics in 1444, so once you have dominated West Africa as Dahomy and don't want any of those fancy styles of government that the arriving Europeans offer, you can go full horde and ride north razing everything into dust.

You will be able to see how close you are to your next reform straight from the main GUI, as we have re-positioned the Great Powers button to allow a button that opens your reforms. This button also fills up with green as you get closer to your next reform so you won't need to keep consulting the tab to check your progress.

Aq Qoyunlu Reforms.jpg


As is often the case, changes to a base system like this is going to be subject to iteration as we continue our work on 1.26 and its accompanying yet unannounced expansion, so do not be surprised when other changes to it are announced along the way. For now though, we will shift our attention in these dev diaries. Starting next week we will have some dev diaries on the map changes upcoming in 1.26. As always, map changes and new nations added are free additions to the game and are part of the upcoming Update. This will also reveal where we will be focusing on in this expansion. In the interest of teasing it though, I'll post some screenshots along the way.

River 1.jpg

We'll see you then!
 

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I really hope it's an Italia focus expansion and the focus are the Italian wars which were a unique conflict that can't be reflected in the current game.
 
Well, Tribal Federations are basically useless so no one is ever going to pick that reform...
Can the Tribal Administration reform be picked in 1444 or do hordes have to wait 10 years to be able to raze?
The first set of reforms represent the governments already in the game. Everyone is going to start with 1 reform already picked.
 
come to think of it, if I remember correctly some of them are +1 [HIDDEN] whereas others are +1 free [HIDDEN] so there are likely two new things being added by reforms
Perhaps a new type of Named Dude, like a diplomat/missionary.

Like a .. Governance Elementalist. Or an... Autonomy warrior. Whereas the FREE thing could be a Free state, free meaning you don't pay maintenance even for an edict AND you get a free subscription of Fan Facts. Wild guessing. Could be anything.
 
I do hope it's a major HRE rework expansion. I enjoy playing in this area so much.
Hoping for Italy, but there's no rivers even vaguely similar to that one there. Can't find anything similar in Germany either. The only one i found that sorta fits is in Moldavia. Borders might change though, and rivers might appear where we previously thought there wasn't one.
 
We already know for sure that Iberia IS NOT the focus of the expansion. So I'm betting it will be an Italy or HRE one. Even though I know it won't be covering Iberia, I pray to the Paradox Lords for an Iberian focused Immersion Pack touching Portugal, Castille, Aragon, Navarre and Granada. Maybe even create a tag for the principality of Andorra and the Balearic Islands. It could be called something on the lines of "Plus Ultra" or something like that, I don't know :p.
Hope is the last thing we humans loose...
 
Cheers for the DD DDRJake :) The paths from tribe/theocracy to other things definitely look more immersive/interesting now, although I suspect not quite as interesting to you in the immediate moment as a cool drink and sunshine :D. Hope you have a great break, I wonder if Groogy and Trin Tragula will get up to mischief while you're away? :).
 
What is the fastest time to change govt form going to look like now? Currently, it's a little after tech 7 assuming you take the 2 matching idea groups as first picks. Will we still be able to do early game govt switching?
 
Well Jake already in the dev diary two weeks ago that we won't have an iberia focus DLC, so the three other options are more likely... Not to forget India, even if it is not my personnal choice, it's been a long time since this region got changes.
I actually checked India. Unless there's a drastic redraw of the map there, I don't think its India. I found nothing even remotely similar to the teased picture. And as for Jake saying they won't do an Iberia focus; are you sure about that? I don't remember that all :confused: Could you link me to where he says that please?
 
Overall it looks like the new government system will offer a lot of options for transitioning from one type to another over the course of the game. Hopefully the harsh max absolutism penalties that more pluralistic governments have will be toned down, so that they remain viable post-1600.

It looks like with Theocracies, Republics and Monarchies, you can go between them in all directions (at some cost). Tribes don't have many reforms, but they can reform to become any of the other types (albeit at a heavy cost in reform power) as well as various different kinds of tribe. The one thing you can't do it seems is go from non-tribal to tribal.

It'll also be interesting to see how the Emperor of China is modelled (as presently this government type doesn't wear any of the four archetypal government hats) and how much freedom it has to enact reforms. Will the EoC necessarily be a Monarchy? Will there be government type restrictions on the ability to claim Mandate of Heaven?
 
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Will a government be able to have multiple unique reforms? I imagine things that introduce mechanics to the government likely won't overlap, and I'm not sure about how many unique reforms are not locked to the tier those mechanics are locked in, but I'm curious as to how wacky a government can be made.
It seems like each section can only have one of the options. Sounds alright, but Im worried it will be too few options.