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EU4 - Development Diary - 1st of September 2020

Good morning! This will be the last in my series of dev diaries about new content coming to South-East Asia. This week we’ll be covering another assortment of countries, with a focus on Lan Xang and Sunda.

dd_lxa.png


Above is the mission tree for Lan Xang, the Land of a Million Elephants. Lan Xang was founded in 1353, in the midst of the collapse of the Khmer Empire. A Lao prince, Fa Ngum, was given an army by the Khmer king and as well as authority to establish a friendly buffer state in modern Laos. Laos was once ruled directly by the Khmer, but the empire was no longer capable of exerting any control over the region. Fa Ngum was successful in his campaigns and carved out the Kingdom of Lan Xang, ultimately becoming even more powerful than the crumbling Khmer empire.

Some highlights for this mission tree:
  • Much like in the Vietnamese mission tree, one part of the tree kicks off with the conflict over the one-province nation of Muang Phuan. Owning the province or having it owned by your subject will grant a Subjugation CB against Dai Viet.
  • The Raid on Cambodia mission grants a Subjugation CB against Khmer.
  • You’ll have to Subjugate Lan Na using your own means, but once you do you’ll get a Subjugation CB against Ayutthaya.
  • Last week we talked about the Emerald Buddha mini-mechanic, and Lan Xang is one of the nations that must acquire the Buddha as part of their mission tree. I’ll get into the subsequent mission in just a bit.
  • I’ll also talk about the Avoid Fragmentation mission below, but essentially it requires surviving intact until 1700.

Lan Xang has also received a couple of tweaks to their national ideas:
  • 10% cavalry power increased to 15%
  • 1% Missionary Strength replaced with 15% Cavalry/Infantry Ratio

LXA can form Siam to get their more extensive mission tree as well as a new set of National Ideas.

dd_lxa_animists.png


I mentioned that I’d talk more about Lan Xang’s religious missions. Above is a new Estate Privilege for the Monastic Orders, available to Lao countries in the Eastern religion group. Lan Xang begins with this privilege in 1444. It greatly increases your Tolerance of Heathens and negates the religious unity penalty of your Animist provinces, but it also significantly increases the Influence of the Monastic Orders and entirely negates the +2 Tolerance of the True Faith from your National Ideas. The Convert the Polytheists mission requires that you revoke this privilege, convert all the Animists in your country, and achieve at least 90% Religious Unity. To help with revoking the privilege, completing the Steal the Emerald Buddha mission grants +20 Monastic Orders Loyalty.

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On the topic of religion, here’s the religion mapmode in 1444. Of particular note are all the Animist provinces owned by Lan Xang, the bastion of Mahayana Buddhism in inland Pahang, and the fact that Ligor is now a Siamese Buddhist nation.

I also mentioned Lan Xang’s Avoid Fragmentation mission. Unlike several other countries in the South-East Asia update, this doesn’t refer to a full-fledged Disaster, but instead it’s a series of additional events added to the existing Civil War Disaster if you are playing as Lan Xang.

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If during this Disaster pretender rebels occupy either Vientiane, Champassak, or Luang Prabang an event will fire that releases the respective country from their home state as well as the Khorat state for Vientiane and Champassak if you own any of it. If when one of these events fires you do not own the other two cities, instead your tag will change to either Vientiane, Champassak, or Luang Prabang depending on the circumstance. Players will be warned about these events when the Civil War Disaster begins for Lan Xang. You can prevent this from happening by either avoiding the Civil War Disaster, completing the Prevent Fragmentation mission, or forming a different nation (such as Siam).

Now on to a very different nation:

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Shown above is the mission tree for Sunda, with unique missions highlighted in red and the rest being the Malay mission tree. The Sunda Kingdom is an ancient realm, surviving through the rise and fall of great empires without ever establishing a hegemony of their own. For nearly all of their shared history, Sunda and Majapahit had excellent relations and recognized each other as equals despite the disparity in strength. This changed when the Majapahit leader Gajah Mada - having vowed to bring all of Nusantara under Majapahit rule - used a royal wedding to declare Majapahit’s supremacy over Sunda. This resulted in the Battle of Bubat in 1357, which Sunda decisively lost. Despite this, Majapahit did not go on to conquer Sunda. Instead, the Majapahit court punished Gajah Mada for his dishonorable actions and stripped him of his power. Sunda survived, but relations between the two states would never recover.

Some highlights from the Sunda mission tree::
  • The Consider Islam mission requires owning 4 Sunni provinces and fires an event giving you the opportunity to convert your nation to Sunni Islam, immediately converting several of your provinces. Alternatively you can gain 1% Missionary Strength and +1 Tolerance of the True Faith for the rest of the game while remaining Hindu.
  • The next mission, Develop New Cities, requires increasing the development of Cirebon, Kalapa, and Banten to 20. This will then fire an event prompting you to relocate your capital: picking Banten or Cirebon will immediately cause you change your nation to Banten or Cirebon. Whichever capital you pick, it will gain +2 additional development in each category and Kalapa will be renamed to Jayakarta.
  • The Rebuild Candi Temples mission requires owning at least 15 Temple buildings and finding an ally that follows any Buddhist faith. Completing this mission unlocks the Buddha Personal Deity discussed previously.
  • The Improve Rice Production mission unlocks the Improved Irrigation privilege discussed previously that reduced the development cost of your grain-producing provinces by 10%.
  • The Legacy of Bubat mission can be completed in two very different ways. One method requires that you become strong enough to guarantee Majapahit - this fires an event that describes a royal wedding between Sundanese and Majapahit royalty, and in a reversal of the betrayal preceding Bubat Sunda will take the opportunity to make Majapahit into a vassal state.
  • The subsequent Rule Java mission requires directly owning all of Java, and rewards a free Administrative Policy for the rest of the game.
  • The Conquer Lampung mission rewards Subjugation CB’s against every country with its capital on Sumatra.

dd_spice.png


Shown above are the missions unique to the Spice Islands of Ternate and Tidore - they’ll also get the Malay mission tree. These nations have the potential to become very rich through a monopoly on the trade in Cloves, a new trade good discussed in a previous dev diary.

Some highlights for Tidore and Ternate:
  • The missions begin by tasking you with removing your rival spice traders from the map. Once you accomplish this, an event will fire asking you to select a location for your first colony. This will naturally great a colony in the selected location. Subsequent missions in the leftmost branch require the completion of these colonies and reward additional colonies on completion.
  • Completing this branch of missions rewards you with +1 Colonist and -50% Native uprising Chance for the rest of the game.
  • Export Cloves requires being the strongest trade power in the Moluccas node, as well as building to your naval forcelimit. It awards permanent claims on Sulawesi, which you pursue in the Conquer Sulawesi mission.

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One last set of missions: Bali! Once again, Bali also receives the Malay mission tree.

  • Bali begins as a tributary state of Majapahit, and its first mission requires ending that relationship while not having a truce with Majapahit. Completing this mission rewards you with a free colony on the neighboring island of Lombok. Completing this colony allows you to complete the Expand Eastwards mission, which then rewards an additional colony on Sumbawa and +25 Global Settler Increase for the rest of the game.
  • The Majapahit Refugees requires that Majapahit either does not exist or is a subject nation. This grants you a massive -80% advisor cost for 20 years, representing the flight of many former Majapahit nobles to Bali. It also awards permanent claims on eastern Java.

Last thing for today: national ideas for the formable nations of Siam and Malaya.

Code:
MSA_ideas = {
    start = {
        global_trade_power = 0.15
        land_morale = 0.1
    }
    bonus = {
        ship_durability = 0.1
    }
    trigger = {
        tag = MSA
    }
    free = yes
    settle_the_islands = { # same as malay ideas
        global_colonial_growth = 20
    }
    msa_advanced_galley_warfare = {
        galley_power = 0.25
    }
    msa_expert_haggling = {
        trade_efficiency = 0.15
    }
    msa_chart_the_seas = {
        own_coast_naval_combat_bonus = 1
        naval_morale = 0.15
    }
    msa_in_every_port = {
        merchants = 1
        ship_power_propagation = 0.2
    }
    msa_sea_nomads_steering = {
        trade_steering = 0.25
    }
    msa_spice_kings = {
        global_trade_goods_size_modifier = 0.1
    }
}

Code:
SIA_ideas = {
    start = {
        land_morale = 0.1
        global_manpower_modifier = 0.3
    }
    bonus = {
        discipline = 0.05
    }
    trigger = {
        tag = SIA
    }
    free = yes
    sia_royal_poets = {
        prestige = 1
        idea_cost = -0.1
    }
    sia_advanced_elephant_warfare = {
        cavalry_power = 0.15
        cavalry_fire = 1
    }
    sia_experienced_ambassadors = {
        diplomatic_reputation = 2
    }
    sia_encourage_immigration = {
        development_cost = -0.1
    }
    sia_integrating_the_realm = {
        diplomatic_annexation_cost = -0.2
    }
    sia_education_reform = {
        technology_cost = -0.1
    }
    sia_royal_absolutism = {
        yearly_absolutism = 1
        legitimacy = 1
    }
}

That’s all for today! This concludes the 8-part series of development diaries on content for South-East Asia. There are a few things I've done that haven't been featured in dev diaries and there's a possibility of more content for the region being added before release, so don't take these dev diaries as a completely exhaustive list of all SEA content. This content update for South-East Asis is something I’ve wanted to work on for a few years now and I’m very happy that I was able to see my vision realized before the end of my time on the project. I hope you enjoyed reading. Thank you and goodbye!
 

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I'm not trying to be rude but honestly, this is a little bit an "eh" for me.

1) According to Tome Peres' Suma Oriental and local history, Sunda was vehemently against Islam.
Not only as a state, its people are also recorded to be hostile to Muslim merchants. If anything, Sunda should begin with "fight against Islam" mission.
Sunda even created an alliance with Portuguese to fight neighboring Sultanates by guaranteeing monopoly of grain in exchange of military aid and forts. The alliance was the oldest kingdom in Southeast Asia to have an alliance with European nation. I would never understand why you put "Consider Islam" as its first mission.

2) Sunda was in crumble
Like I mentioned in my thread, Sunda was in crumble in 1444. The 700-years old union with Galuh kingdom were broken in 1440. Moreover, in 1445, their holding in Sumatra tried to gain independence:
- Sultanate of Sekala Brak in Lampung
- Sultanate of Cirebon in Cirebon
- Sultanate of Banten in Banten
Sunda never reformed into Cirebon, Banten or the lesser known Sekala Brak. Sunda and Galuh, collapsed by them.

3) Ternate and Tidore were a center of Islam in the Moluccas.
4) They would spread Islam to Sulawesi and Lesser Sunda Islands.
5) They created Islamic alliance against European with Johor and Aceh.
6) They spanned from Southern Philippines to Northern Australia. Sigh.

I don't want to sound like a hardcore nationalist. but this feel really bad, especially after you guys created that much for Emperor.

You may be new to EU4 dev cycles. For the last well every year there's a paid DLC and a free patch a paid DLC and a free patch. The free patch always contains less because it is free. Compare this update to the Manchu update rather than the Emperor DLC.

The new Siamese ideas will be too strong. I dont know if it is good for the game. I hope that changes before releasing the new patch.

In what way would it bad? Its ideas are on par with Yuan and Mughals. All of which require conquering land.

Malaya outclasses Venice so hard on both galley warfare and trade it's not even funny. Malaya basically has similar ideas to Venice but better in every case, 15% global trade power in traditions compared to 10% of Venice in traditions, 15% trade efficiency as an idea compared to 10% trade efficiency of venice, 25% galley combat ability early compared to Venice in ambitions. Venice gets no ship durability bonus while Malaya gets it, Malaya gets 15% naval morale and 1+ to rolls near coasts (which is ideal for galleys).


It is funny but Venice is not a formable. It would be nice if Venice's missions had more of that.
 
Let's go through them:

Traditions: 10% morale, 30% manpower

Good start, but in SEA you will need that manpower bonus more than anywhere else.

Royal Poets: +1 yearly prestige, -10% idea cost

Decent.

Advance Elephant Warfare: Cavalry Fire +1.0, Cavalry combat ability +15%

LOL cavalry

Encourage Immigration: -10% development cost

Filler

Education Reform: -10% technology cost

Filler

All of these ideas are extremely strong in an area where you have to develop from 0% to get instutions and in combination add up to a lot of mana saved over the course of the game. None of it is filler. Only filler idea in the entire set is the cavalry one and considering Ottomans get ideas like "-10% reduction to reduce war exhaustion" and "15% cavalry combat ability" alone, the idea set adds up to one of the strongest in the game. Bonuses over bonuses saving on ideas, technology and development, basically everything that use mana for is such strong synergy, you save mana from developing to get institutions, which you can use to get technologies instead where you also save mana, which you can use to get ideas where you also save mana, which then you can use to develop and so on. If CCR is good because it saves you a lot of mana on the long run, so is combination of so many mana cost reductions. This is of course ignoring the extremely powerful diplomatic annexation cost which even further synergises with all these and a full +1 to absolutism and legitimacy in a single idea.

Of course, even as a filler, there are entire states who heavily used dragoons or cavalry archers historically that don't get fire on cavalry (regardless of how useful it is as an ability, though I actually think it would be decent compensation mid-game)
 
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Let's go through them:

Traditions: 10% morale, 30% manpower

Good start, but in SEA you will need that manpower bonus more than anywhere else.

Royal Poets: +1 yearly prestige, -10% idea cost

Decent. You will save at most 2.120 monarch points over the course of a game (likely less), which is not that many honestly.

Advance Elephant Warfare: Cavalry Fire +1.0, Cavalry combat ability +15%

LOL cavalry

Experience Ambassadors: +2 diplomatic reputation

Good.

Encourage Immigration: -10% development cost

Filler

Integrating the Realm: -20% diplomatic annexation cost

Best idea in the set, synergizes very well with Experience Ambassadors.

Education Reform: -10% technology cost

Filler

Royal Absolutism: +1 yearly absolutism, +1 legitimacy

Second-best idea of the set.

Ambition: +5% discipline

Good.

What did I just read -

That Cavalry idea is insane. Cavalry only get +0.5 Fire at tech 11 and then tech 22, so Siam's cavalry getting another +1 on top of 15% CCA might make their Cavs viable and slam you during shock phase.

-10% Dev is not "filler." It is one of the best economic ideas in the game. -10% tech is not filler as well, -5% tech is. -Tech Costs saves a good amount of mana in the long run.

Do you seriously think +1 Yearly Abs is somehow the "Second-best idea of the set?" lmao
 
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I am actually very disappointed, because I agreed fully with @neondt when he stated that idea sets should be thematic and represent flavour, not stacking few strong bonuses for world conquest. However here in Siam and Malaya we have some of the most min-maxed idea sets, Siam ideaset is munchkined for mana efficiency in an area where mana efficiency is most important, and such huge amount of saving on mana costs is very important in a world-conquest run and Siam also gets absolutism and discipline bonuses on top, then Malaya has the strongest naval idea set for galleys bar none by far while also exceeding all other naval powers minus GB because of 15% naval morale and +1 combat rolls in a single idea which is near munchkin, regardless of how important naval warfare is, it is Prussia/Poland tier stacked and gets 10% morale on land too absolutely randomly, as if Prussia and Poland would get ship bonuses as well. Comparing Venice and Malaya just drives the point further.

These two ideaset represents some of the most min-maxed ideasets in their categorical aims, of course Siamese one is a contender for top tier ideaset for world conquest while Malayan is not but Malaya ideaset is definitely the best ideaset in what its aiming with so many stacked bonuses.
 
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Finally some good Thai NI so that I can take Ming head on early though reading people comment made me nervous that they would nerf Siam even before release now.
 
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1 Cavalry Fire AND +15% CCA

It's not. While cavalry will have better fire than infantry for most of the game, it also has much worse fire pips. Chinese cavalry literally can not get more than 1 fire pip until tech 28.

Just for fun, here are some damage calcs at tech 17 (assuming no generals, neutral terrain, a dice roll of 5 and no unit quality from anywhere else; attacking a 0-pip enemy).

Infantry (Asian Mass Infantry: 3 offensive fire)

kills = 55 * 1 * 1.1 * 1 * 1 * 0.525 * 1.01 * 1 = 32.08

Cavalry (Banner Cavalry: 1 offensive fire)

kills = 45 * 1 * 2 * 1. * 1.15 * 0.525 * 1.01 * 1 = 54.88

Which seems great, but cavalry gets slaughtered during the fire phase and costs 2.5x as much as infantry. So no, cav is still not worth it, even though it's much closer than for anyone else. And by tech 17 cannons are slowly but surely becoming relevant.
 
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It's not. While cavalry will have better fire than infantry for most of the game, it also has much worse fire pips. Chinese cavalry literally can not get more than 1 fire pip until tech 28.

Just for fun, here are some damage calcs at tech 17 (assuming no generals, neutral terrain, a dice roll of 5 and no unit quality from anywhere else; attacking a 0-pip enemy).

Infantry (Asian Mass Infantry: 3 offensive fire)

kills = 55 * 1 * 1.1 * 1 * 1 * 0.525 * 1.01 * 1 = 32.08

Cavalry (Banner Cavalry: 1 offensive fire)

kills = 45 * 1 * 2 * 1. * 1.15 * 0.525 * 1.01 * 1 = 54.88

Which seems great, but cavalry gets slaughtered during the fire phase and costs 2.5x as much as infantry. So no, cav is still not worth it, even though it's much closer than for anyone else. And by tech 17 cannons are slowly but surely becoming relevant.
+1 raw Fire means Siamese Cav is much more suited to survive the Fire phase (this is still literally increasing base fire by 200% from techs 11-22). Cav's problem is not its damage, it's the fact that they don't survive long enough to dish out that damage. Price is seriously not a factor vs military strength any time past early game, since if you're using maxed stacks you probably need the damage (MP, Very Hard vs strong AI). Plus, Cav's price is not such a big deal now that every stack doesn't have all inf mercs.
 
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It's not. While cavalry will have better fire than infantry for most of the game, it also has much worse fire pips. Chinese cavalry literally can not get more than 1 fire pip until tech 28.

Just for fun, here are some damage calcs at tech 17 (assuming no generals, neutral terrain, a dice roll of 5 and no unit quality from anywhere else; attacking a 0-pip enemy).

Infantry (Asian Mass Infantry: 3 offensive fire)

kills = 55 * 1 * 1.1 * 1 * 1 * 0.525 * 1.01 * 1 = 32.08

Cavalry (Banner Cavalry: 1 offensive fire)

kills = 45 * 1 * 2 * 1. * 1.15 * 0.525 * 1.01 * 1 = 54.88

Which seems great, but cavalry gets slaughtered during the fire phase and costs 2.5x as much as infantry. So no, cav is still not worth it, even though it's much closer than for anyone else. And by tech 17 cannons are slowly but surely becoming relevant.

It's precisely because the idea is compensating for cavalry weakness in fire phase it's good. Sure, I wouldn't call it a strong bonus, it might even be considered filler but it's not useless. Besides, cavalry while not worthwhile on its own, becomes very much usable when its bonuses are stacked because they become very manpower efficient, which is why Hordes or Poland can use lots of cavalry. Compare to Ottoman 15% cavalry bonus with no other bonuses to cavalry whatsoever, on a state which historically had half of its armies cavalry in the period before 17th century, and extensively used cavalry archers then dragoons all its history.
 
+1 raw Fire means Siamese Cav is much more suited to survive the Fire phase

+1.0 Fire is a strictly offensive modifier. It does not increase the survivability of cavalry in the fire phase, except by inflicting greater casualties on the enemy (and thus taking less damage next round).

Actually, let's see what happens when Siamese infantry shoots chinese cavalry while Siamese cav shoots other infantry, once again at tech 17:

Asian Mass Infantry vs Banner Cavalry

kills = 50 *1 * 1.1 * 1 *1 * 0.525 * 1.01 * 1 = 29.16

Banner Cavalry vs Asian Mass Infantry

kills = 35 * 1 * 2 * 1 * 1.15 * 0.525 * 1.01 * 1 = 42.69

Against 2 infantry regiments, Banner Cav will lose the kill race. And there is still the issue with artillery, which just around that time starts dealing serious damage on the battlefield which hampers cavalry.

And between techs 14 and 17 Chinese cav has no offensive fire pips, which doesn't help building a more fire-heavy cavalry army.

Now if you form Siam as an Indian tech country though, at tech 14 you get Dai-Phat Cavalry which has 2 offensive shock pips (but sucks in Fire defence)
 
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Is Tidore really accurately portrayed as "Malay"?
 
+1.0 Fire is a strictly offensive modifier. It does not increase the survivability of cavalry in the fire phase, except by inflicting greater casualties on the enemy (and thus taking less damage next round).

Actually, let's see what happens when Siamese infantry shoots chinese cavalry while Siamese cav shoots other infantry, once again at tech 17:

Asian Mass Infantry vs Banner Cavalry

kills = 50 *1 * 1.1 * 1 *1 * 0.525 * 1.01 * 1 = 29.16

Banner Cavalry vs Asian Mass Infantry

kills = 35 * 1 * 2 * 1 * 1.15 * 0.525 * 1.01 * 1 = 42.69

Against 2 infantry regiments, Banner Cav will lose the kill race. And there is still the issue with artillery, which just around that time starts dealing serious damage on the battlefield which hampers cavalry.

And between techs 14 and 17 Chinese cav has no offensive fire pips, which doesn't help building a more fire-heavy cavalry army.

Now if you form Siam as an Indian tech country though, at tech 14 you get Dai-Phat Cavalry which has 2 offensive shock pips (but sucks in Fire defence)
Like you said, +1 Fire helps Cavalry survive by inflicting greater casualties on the enemy. There is no "defensive stat."
Why are you comparing 2 infantry to 1 Cav? The output that you are getting by spending more ducats is more damage in a single space, in which case Siamese Cav are much better at.
 
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There is no "defensive stat."

Well there is. -x% fire/shock damage taken and tactics (and indirectly discipline as it acts as a multiplier on tactics). ;P

However, I'd argue that a lack of killiness was never actually the problem of cavalry, especially once you get into the lategame. Cavalry actually has a combined 6.0 points of damage at tech 32, while infantry only reaches 5.25.

The main problem is that cavalry dies like flies once artillery comes online between techs 16 and 22. And no amount of cavalry damage will fix this because cavalry is forced to engage the enemy frontline while the cannons can continue to blap it with impunity. And Ayutthaya can't form Siam before the Age of Absolutism, which means it can't employ its strong cavalry during the earlygame where it would admittedly be terrifying to go up against.
 
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Oceania update confirmed?
View attachment 615196
Judging by the fact that Malayan nations have missions explicitly focused on Australia, I have a feeling that only Australia will get any content in this patch. That said, I would be positively surprised if there's content for the rest of Oceania as well. Hawaii, Tonga and Maori tribes have been frequently brought up when discussion about adding content for the Pacific Isles has emerged in the past, so if a hypothetical Oceania patch were to take place, I'd expect those areas to be included.
 
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@neondt
Excellent work!

two question:
1. When will this update be available?
2. Will there be a convert to islam option to islam, like what Ramadhipati I did?
 
Is that... a religion color in Australia? could it be? *australian aboriginal playthrough inensifies*
I wouldn't read too much into it. I think it's just the Animist religion being split between Asia and other places (possibly even into more than 2), so that they would no longer consider themselves brothers in faith.

If there are any new nations, tribes in New Zealand feel much more likely than Australia.
 
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