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EU4 - Development Diary - 20th of October 2020

Hello everyone! Today we’ll be exploring two of the smaller religions in Europa Universalis IV. Zoroastrianism and Sikhism. For the coming update we’ll be working on making these more interesting by giving them their own mechanics. Keep in mind that everything you see is very much work in progress, you’ll see a lot of my very temporary coder art.



So first let’s start with Sikhism. They already got some stuff in the game using events. Throughout the game's timeline as a Sikh you will go through the various Gurus that were a big part of shaping the faith in history. Each of these gurus would add their own modifier to the religion. We are now making this more integrated by making it a mechanic and adding some more player agency for what the player can do with this.

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UX is very much WIP, here it is showing you currently have Guru Nanak as your incumbent Guru and that Guru Angad is his future successor.

You still get gurus over the decades giving you various modifiers as you progress through the game. But I’ve also done that each Guru will provide three teachings unique to that guru that the player can pick between. In total there will be 30 teachings to pick between throughout the game, and once the guru that gives that teaching is succeeded the picked teaching becomes permanent and you can’t switch to the other two anymore. You can at max have 6 teachings, and for each teaching you take you will lose 1 missionary strength. Each teaching is associated with either Adm, Dip or Mil mana and cost 50 of their respective category of monarch power to enact.

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As Johan mentioned last dev diary I got sick so I don’t have a full list of the new guru’s values and teachings as some of these features got literally finished this morning and I haven’t had time to fix that yet. But I’ll provide a list as soon as it’s done for the people who love to crunch the numbers.



Next thing is my favorite religion of all time and why hedgehogs are holy. Zoroastrianism is one of the oldest religions still in existence and has a lot of fascinating things around it which is a shame that it has gone so long without having gotten any mechanics tied to it. If you didn’t know Hedgehogs are considered a sort of “holy dog” within Zoroastrianism, a creature of the light which is obviously why it’s the best religion.

Anyway so what are we actually doing with Zoroastrianism? Since in the start of the game they are not in any particularly strong position, a people in sort of a diaspora we’ve been focusing around that. We already have some remnants in Yazd but we are also adding the Parsi in Gujarat. At the start of the game the province Daman will start as Zoroastrians. But there is also an event that you will get if you employ a lot of Parsi Zoroastrian advisors that will let you convert the province to Parsi.

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Continuing with the diaspora theme their mechanic added to them will be based on the Coptic Blessings but instead called Rituals. The Zoroastrians have been given 5 fire temples they need to rekindle, like in their old decision, and as they do they will be rewarded.

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Keep in mind art here is WIP

The various rituals you can pick are as follows:
Yasna: -0.05 Yearly Corruption
Haoma: +5% Goods Produced Modifier
Navjote: +2% Missionary Strength
Manthras: +10% Governing Capacity
Dakhma: -5% Construction Cost

Also since we are talking about holy hedgehogs and zoroastrianism I believe it is only fair I show off my Lord Cyrus, King of Kings, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four corners of the world(also known as my bedroom). Click on them for larger pictures.

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Curious boi

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Burrito boi

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Hungry boi

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Sleepy boi

Hope you’ve enjoyed today's dev diary! Do remember that today we are celebrating the 20 year anniversary of the EU Franchise. Among the hosts of the stream will be me so be sure to drop by! Cya there!

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Stream Schedule (all times in CEST)
13-14 - Dev Stories from EU1 and the board game with special guest Philippe Thibaut
14-15 - Dev Stories from EU2
15-17 - Dev Stories from EU3
17-18 - Break
18-21 - EU4, events and the upcoming board game Europa Universalis: The Price of Power with Aegir Games
 
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Okay, not it's kinda feel Holy Fury-like DLC/update, but way less inspiring
 
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Also, will Parsi belong to Iranian culture group?
 
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And if today's topic is religion then let me ask: Will CK2 converter religions be added to EU4's base game? I believe I read in one of Emperors dd's that it will be done. Have I missed sth or is it still sth to be done in future or...?
 
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*Sees Zoroastrianism getting an official rework*
Good thing I haven't started reworking it for my mod then.

As an aside- while Animism also be getting a rework? Since the expansion will be covering mostly SEA and Indonesia, where there are Animist nations, it would be nice to see Animism (and Totemism) at least getting some minor love
 
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Though it's always good to add flavour to the game, do we really need to add flavour to Zoroastrian?

I feel as though this perpetrates the meme trend the game has been having for a while. After the first couple weeks of this religion launch, I'd be surprised if people were still using it in any real numbers.

I guess the question I'm asking is: is this a good allocation of department time - rather than addressing more serious issues to the game state. And if it'd adding flavour, why not flesh out religions which need the favour and are getting picked such as any of the outdated karma mechanics.
 
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And if today's topic is religion then let me ask: Will CK2 converter religions be added to EU4's base game? I believe I read in one of Emperors dd's that it will be done. Have I missed sth or is it still sth to be done in future or...?
If I had this I could make any number of alt history maps without having to convert anything. It would be awesome.

As for the patch, I really enjoy the SE Asia changes, as well as the potential for change in Australia, and the update to North America, but it doesn't seem like this update has any clear focus yet?

As for whether Zoroastrianism and Sikh as uses of department time: I don't know how much time Zoroastrian actually takes seeing as it's just reusing the coptic mechanic, and Sikhism kind of desperately needed mechanics imo, as playing Punjab didn't seem very attractive otherwise.
 
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I guess the question I'm asking is: is this a good allocation of department time

Zoroastrian is reusing something already existing, Sikhs are getting something entirely new. This is about just making sure there's "something" for faiths that currently have nothing.
 
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Good morning,good DD,however,question.Will the new religions mechanics all be in the new unannouced expansion or some will go as an update for older expansions?
Thanks for any replies about this.
 
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Zoroastrian is reusing something already existing, Sikhs are getting something entirely new. This is about just making sure there's "something" for faiths that currently have nothing.

In that case, will you do something with Jewish faith? At least there is a possibility for a lot of flavor events and maybe making Jerusalem jewish at least religiously.
 
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Good morning,good DD,however,question.Will the new religions mechanics all be in the new unannouced expansion or some will go as an update for older expansions?
Thanks for any replies about this.

These mechanics will be part of expansion yes, if you don't have it then Sikh's will get their old events as before.
 
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Those Zoroastrian bonuses seem very weak compared to Coptic ones.

They are balanced around that as Zoroastrian you are most likely going to form Persia considering the holy sites and as such they combine together with this
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Plus the really good trade goods of the region.
 
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