• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

EU4 - Development Diary - 19th of January 2021

Hello and Welcome to another Europa Universalis IV development diary. 2020 was an interesting year to say the least, but now we are in 2021, and the Tinto team is now fully up to speed with working on the new expansion. Today we’ll focus on some new aspects related to Heirs, Regencies and Estates.

First of all, one change for heirs and their legitimacy is that it will start a fair bit lower on average, and slowly increase over time as the heir grows older. Having high prestige increases it faster. Please note that corruption in your court increases it, as there is nothing screaming legitimate future King as much as a few sacks of gold in your pocket.

Secondly, with this new expansion, we have removed the regency councils, and instead replaced them by Estate Regencies.

Instead, a Regent will be generated from your most powerful estate. This will further increase the power of that estate, which might also give you a specific benefit or not.

eu4_18.png

Please note however that this does not replace consort regencies - consorts will still take priority over an estate-led regency

Thirdly, we are adding the option for extending a regency. Extending a regency reduces legitimacy by 10, and extends the current regency with another 5 years. Of course, the claim of the heir continues to increase. While a regency has some drawbacks, this can be very beneficial, if your heir is an imbecile, and your regency council is not entire incompetent.

Lest we forget, we have also changed so that you are no longer constantly losing legitimacy the longer you have a regency, but instead its an increase in stability cost.

We are also adding a fair bit more interesting events that occur when you are in a regency, all to add more interesting flavor to the experience, not to mention interesting situations.

As you may have noticed, this is one of the shorter development diaries, even if it gives you some new features, but next week, we’ll return to an interesting look at some more american nations and their content.
 
  • 157Like
  • 24Love
  • 16
  • 9
  • 2
  • 1Haha
Reactions:
I'm a keep it real with you Johan; I will never extend a regency if it means extending the period of time where I can't declare new wars.

Enrique de Trastamara

vs

a 6/6/6 regency council ?
 
  • 44Haha
  • 10
  • 6Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Any chance that you will introduce an option for the regent to be a ruler of another nation, creating a temporary union? I can think of using such a mechanism to more properly reflect the division of Austria.

Not planned.. with how the codestructure works regarding monarchs, heirs and unions, I'd go "could try, but thats would add a few weeks of crazy bugs to fix, and probably some we never discover internally, but some of the community will see day 1 and will crucify us for".

So no, I don't think its something we'd add at this point.
 
  • 25Haha
  • 16
  • 6Like
  • 2
Reactions:
What about governments with factions?

I think the only monarchy with factions in vanilla is Celestial Empire if you don't own Mandate of Heaven, but this is relevant for mods as well.

One day I hope we have enough time to kill the faction system with fire and salt its remains forever.

That day is not today :(
 
  • 27Haha
  • 12Like
  • 8
  • 1
Reactions:
Is it possible for a regent to have a different culture and/or religion than the primary one? For example, if a regent becomes from the dhimmi, could they possibly be a Greek Orthodox instead of a Turkish Sunni?

they will most likely be primary culture, and state religion, as the estates themselves do not know anything else.


EDIT: talked to the programmer, we'll add that it will pick religion/culture from a random province you have with the christian religion group for the dhimmi
 
Last edited:
  • 27Love
  • 15Like
  • 4
  • 2
Reactions:
On a somewhat unrelated note: why aren't dev diaries sticky?

Its because I've noticed that making something sticky means people ignore it.
 
  • 31Haha
  • 7Like
  • 6
  • 3
  • 1
Reactions:
It is short, but still very interesting.

A question though, if you keep the regency longer, it cost legitimacy, but your heir will gain more legitimacy durying the five years.

Will the gain refund the loss?
Is the heir able to die during any kind of regency?

Probably not, but the legitimacy of the regency council is not the same as the legitimacy of your heir..

The heir can of course always die to hunting accidents. Its after-all the 2nd most important event in the game.
 
  • 37Haha
  • 3
  • 1Like
  • 1Love
  • 1
Reactions:
Also I'd like to know the actual strength of an heir's legitimacy. I just had a Court and Country disaster run ruined when at the last minute my heir came to the throne, and despite being "strong" it turned out to be 80 legitimacy and lowered my absolutism.

The UI now shows it with 2 decimals.
 
  • 19
  • 15Like
  • 5
  • 2Love
Reactions:
Will the estate regent still work the same as the normal regency i.e. still not able to declare wars during the regency council?

Yes. Its the same as a regency coucil in THAT aspect.

There will be different types of challenges depending on which estate that takes power.
 
  • 30
  • 5Like
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
Please implement a basic dynastic element. I appreciate it's not CK2/3. But the entire period was filled with dynastic conflicts based on which children were married to whom.

That would be cool, but its entirely outside the scope of EU4.
 
  • 29
  • 21
  • 11
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Or there is a third reason,since EU4 is an old game,making this type of big mechanics change at this stage of his life can broke a lot of things,including the AI.

this.
 
  • 22
  • 6
  • 1Like
Reactions:
It’s long overdue, but really, it deserves a DLC entirely of its own. I’m gonna hope they update it in depth a couple patches from now, rather than doing a cursory update now that’s tacked onto all the other regions they’re focusing on.

We are not touching south america in 1.31
 
  • 20
  • 5
  • 4
  • 2Like
  • 1Love
Reactions:
  • 17Like
  • 5
  • 3Love
  • 1
Reactions:
Did I understand this correctly? Corruption has now gained an upside? Finally, I knew corruption was the way to go!

The original idea was that corruption should not only be bad, it should be a bit of a trade off.
 
  • 14
  • 7
  • 3Like
  • 1Love
Reactions:
What if there is no estate (as a modder)?

if no estates, no estate regencies, only the normal regency council mechanic.. same as if you do not buy this expansion.
 
  • 18
  • 5
  • 2Like
  • 1
Reactions:
And: Is the picture just for showing the new change, or is austria now starting with a 11 year regency council and 0 leg heir?

I just killed my ruler from console :)
 
  • 17Haha
  • 4
  • 2Like
  • 1
Reactions:
  • 12
  • 6Like
  • 5
  • 1Love
Reactions:
Also, are these events universal or some of them are designed for specific nations (like Hungary with Hunyadi or Russia with Boris Godunov)?

there already exists an event for Hunyadi becoming ruler of Hungary.

Some of the Hungarian events I kind of know by heart, even if its a long time since release.. When we made the original events, I made the ones for Venice, Mamelukes and Hungary.
 
  • 12
  • 4
  • 3Like
  • 1Love
Reactions:
First of all, one change for heirs and their legitimacy is that it will start a fair bit lower on average, and slowly increase over time as the heir grows older.
Now that is something I've been waiting on for years.
 
  • 10
  • 8Like
Reactions: