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EU4 - Development Diary - 17th of January 2017

Hello everyone, in today's development diary we’ll go into details about the Age of Absolutism and the Absolutism mechanic. The absolutism mechanic is part of the free patch, while the Age abilities and objectives are part of the expansion.

So, how does the absolutism mechanic now work?

First of all, we’ve removed the Absolute Monarchy government form.

Secondly, administrative efficiency from technology is now 10% from each tech giving it.

Governments now have an “Absolutism” value, which ranges from 0 to 100, and this increases your administrative efficiency with up to 40% and your discipline with up to 5%, and makes foreign cores on you decay 3 times as quick at maximum absolutism.

There is also a maximum value to absolutism a nation can have, which defaults to 65, with legitimacy increasing it up to +20, republics decreasing it by 30, religious unity increasing it by 5, great power by 5, being empire by 5, and several other factors.

Several events and ideas talking about absolutism now affect absolutism either by directly increasing it, or having a yearly increase.

Absolutism is not just a number that ticks up or down like so many others, this is tied into the actions you do as a player.

Doing harsh treatment on rebels, increasing stability and decreasing autonomy in a province each increase absolutism by +1.

Increasing autonomy reduce it by 2, debase currency reduce it by 1, accepting rebel demands reduce it by 10, assigning a seat in parliament by 3 and reducing war exhaustion reduce it by 1.

These numbers will be tweaked during the development, and actions impacting absolutism may be added or removed from this list.

Whats cool for modders is that you can script absolutism impact individually for your age.
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Here is the special things regarding the Age of Absolutism, which lasts from 1620 until 1710.

Rules

Absolutism mechanics are enabled.
English Civil War & Court & Country Disaster, can only happen in this Age.

Objectives
  1. Have 3 Trade Companies
  2. Own and Control at least 3 Universities.
  3. Have 90%+ Absolutism
  4. At least 5 different cultures promoted.
  5. Be Emperor of China
  6. Reach a force-limit of 200 regiments.
  7. Be on victorious side of the religious war.

Abilities
  • 50% shorter unrest impact from changing autonomy (shorter cooldown)
  • +1 Yearly Absolutism
  • 50% cheaper and quicker to change rivals
  • Forts bordering rivals are free to maintain
  • +5% Administrative efficiency
  • Allow Edict “Edict of Abolutism” 10 years less separatism in state.
  • Harsh Treatment 50% cheaper
  • France - 20% extra firedamage
  • Netherlands - 0.2 corruption reduction
  • Sweden - +35% manpower recovery
  • Manchu - +50% Larger Banners
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Next week, we’ll look into the Age of Revolutions.
 
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It seems to me that the "Mandate of Heaven" is now a number too like Absolutism, or am I wrong in that?
 
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well we can assume the y get something special showing up there special mil idea of the banners which was a way how manchu and quing organised there armys. No idea how that is in the game but right now its only a unit type. So seems there are some new mechanics in the area
 
Recently I had a discussion with a friend of mine on the topic of EU4 being an extremely long game encompassing a number of varied historical periods.
The ages mechanics look great as the solution to differentiating these periods without the need of more violently subdividing the game. I applaud the designers for this idea!

Manchu - +50% Larger Banners

Hmm, what might the banners be? :)
 
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Well done absolutism mechanic! Is it present in the Age of Revolution too?

The Dutch bonus seems a bit weak to me.
 
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Max adminstrative efficiency is now 70%? Nice. Are there any reasons not to make absolutism as high as possible?

Also:
"Be Emperor of China"
"Manchu - +50% Larger Banners"

You teeeaaase
 
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Well done absolutism mechanic! Is it present in the Age of Revolution too?

The Dutch bonus seems a bit weak to me.

Its present in Age of Revolutions as well.

It allows you to debase currency quite often :)
 
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Also, for the age description, might I suggest ""This is the age of Empire Building, where the power of a monarch becomes absolute." (Should this go to the bug/suggestion forum?)

"The rule [...] becomes absolute in power" feels off to me.
 
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I hope the +50% Larger Banners is just a cosmetic effect to have your troops appear bigger and badder!
 
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Absolutism is not just a number that ticks up or down like so many others, this is tied into the actions you do as a player.

Doing harsh treatment on rebels, increasing stability and decreasing autonomy in a province each increase absolutism by +1.

Increasing autonomy reduce it by 2, debase currency reduce it by 1, accepting rebel demands reduce it by 10, assigning a seat in parliament by 3 and reducing war exhaustion reduce it by 1.
This is really really great. Really nice to get mechanics which aren't isolated from what you do, but instead are closely tied into everything and hence affected by your actions. We need more of that kind of mechanics.

Why does Great Britain get that -30 when they're a kingdom? Wasn't it republics getting a -30?
 
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