Hello everyone and welcome to another development diary about Europa Universalis. This time we have a feature for Common Sens, that is so large that it is spread over two weeks of development diaries. It is how we interact with your subject states.

In the subjects overview screen, there is now an additional button where you can open up an interaction menu with all your subjects.

Today we’ll talk about the tools you have regarding vassals, marches and lesser union partners.

Placate Local Rulers
This can be done on both vassals and marches, and lets you pay prestige (if you have positive prestige), to reduce the liberty desire of that subject by 10%.

Embargo Rivals
This is a toggle you can put on any subject. If it is on they will embargo all your rivals as quickly as their diplomats can travel. However, this increases their liberty desire by 5% while active.

Place Relative on Throne
This can only be done on vassals, and only when they have a regency. You can replace the regency with a ruler from your own dynasty.

Enforce Religion
This can only be done on vassals, unions and marches. This is possible if the subject is in your religious group, have less than 50% of Liberty Desire, and you have positive relations. Of course, this increases Liberty Desire by 50%, so its something you have to evaluate when it is desirable to do.

Scutage
This is a toggle that can be set to on or off on a vassal. When it is on, they will not be called into wars, unless declared war upon. However, they will provide 50% more of its income to you.

Subsidize Armies
This is a toggle in marches, where if on, you will send up to 10% of your manpower to them each month, to fill up their manpower pool.

Fortify March
This allows you to build or upgrade a fort in a march, where you as overlord fronts the build costs.

Enforce Culture
This is the option if you got some diplomatic power to burn. You can swap the primary culture of a lesser union partner to your culture for a power cost, but this is only doable if they are below 50% liberty desire and it will increase it by 50% as well.

Siphon Income
Unions usually do not provide money to their overlord, but history is full of rulers who took from one part of their realm to provide for another. This action lets you take 50% of a lesser union partners yearly income if you have positive relations. It will increase liberty desire by 10% but also reduce relations rather dramatically.

Support Loyalists
Unions don’t have any local ruler that needs to be placated, so instead you have a toggle where you spend 10% of their monthly income each month, while reducing liberty desire by 20% as long as its active.

Next week we’ll talk about protectorates, trade companies and colonial nations, and their unique actions.

 

[TheDungen]

UNfortunatelly it will work exactly opposite way: unaccepted cultures at fringes of PU union and their colonies will become culturally converted, which means peasants and burgers, not court, which stay in capital.

Well the court will be converted because that's what the primary culture represents. The majority of the people in the capital however won't.

 

[Guancyto]

If convert culture/religion works on colonial nations it will be a godsend, no more extra trouble with colonial nations because I was catholic when I started colonizing and switched later.

Plus they'll convert to correct culture if I steal all of POR's CNs by annexing them.

 

[zdlugasz]

Well the court will be converted because that's what the primary culture represents. The majority of the people in the capital however won't.

And here we disagree. In game you do not have "court culture". The primary_culture represent culture of population, and any colonies or culture conversion use primary_culture. Most of late-game European courts were almost exclusively French. Does it mean that every colony established in XVIIIth century should have French culture? Does it make sense for you?

 

[Micky Beelius]

Anyone else really looking forward to a Holland -> Struggle for Independence -> Netherlands game?

Hell Yeah

 

[Montem]

I just realized there are two more weeks to the release and not one and now I'm sad.

 

[Montem]

Well, it's EU4: Episode 7 which coincides with the release year of Episode VII

1: EU4
2: CoP
3: WoN
4: RP
5: AoW
6: ED
7: CS

7 releases for 7 episodes.

7 is prime. 3 is prime.

Half-Life 3 confirmed.

EDIT: I'm unsure of why this is "Helpful" and not "Agree" but okay...

 

[TheDungen]

And here we disagree. In game you do not have "court culture". The primary_culture represent culture of population, and any colonies or culture conversion use primary_culture. Most of late-game European courts were almost exclusively French. Does it mean that every colony established in XVIIIth century should have French culture? Does it make sense for you?

They were not french they were french inspired. Not even Sweden under Gustav III who was probably one of the greatest non french francophiles of all time truly had a french court.

Also really late game the national romanticism has begun to rear it's ugly head.

 

[Em Ay Ef]

Was it stated/shown somewhere that Sevila feeds to Genoa?

it wasn't. my assumption is based on the following facts:

• Bordeaux will lose its end node status, as confirmed by multiple screenshots that show merchants steering from Bordeaux to Champagne.
• a screenshot confirmed that Champagne now feeds into Genoa, while the trade route linking Bordeaux directly to Genoa has been axed.
• a new achievement will be added for trade domination in English Channel, Venice and Genoa.
• the trade route between Genoa and Sevilla will be maintained (it's visible on screenshots), albeit we don't know its direction.

while the choice of trade nodes for the achievement may well be arbitrary, i'm inclined to believe that it simply encompasses all end nodes in the game (since we know Bordeaux lost its status, two out of three end nodes left are already included in the achievement).

of course it's still possible that trade will go from Bordeaux through Champage and Genoa to Sevilla, but it doesn't seem very likely to me. i may be wrong, of course.

(in addition to that, one of the devs mentioned in the multiplayer thread that Genoa is such a wonderful node now. it hardly proves anything though.)

 

[TheDungen]

We could be wrong though, perhaps there are no end nodes any more.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Awesome

it wasn't. my assumption is based on the following facts:

• Bordeaux will lose its end node status, as confirmed by multiple screenshots that show merchants steering from Bordeaux to Champagne.
• a screenshot confirmed that Champagne now feeds into Genoa, while the trade route linking Bordeaux directly to Genoa has been axed.
• a new achievement will be added for trade domination in English Channel, Venice and Genoa.
• the trade route between Genoa and Sevilla will be maintained (it's visible on screenshots), albeit we don't know its direction.

while the choice of trade nodes for the achievement may well be arbitrary, i'm inclined to believe that it simply encompasses all end nodes in the game (since we know Bordeaux lost its status, two out of three end nodes left are already included in the achievement).

of course it's still possible that trade will go from Bordeaux through Champage and Genoa to Sevilla, but it doesn't seem very likely to me. i may be wrong, of course.

(in addition to that, one of the devs mentioned in the multiplayer thread that Genoa is such a wonderful node now. it hardly proves anything though.)

Excellent arguments. In addition to that, countries that dominated commerce and trade in Europe during the game period happen to be in the Genoa, Venice, and English Channel nodes.

(e.g.
-the Italian merchant republics like Florence, Genoa and Venice
-some of the first deposit banks were chartered in Barcelona, Venice and Genoa, financing development all across Europe
-Trade dominance of the North Atlantic passed between competitors in Bruges (Hansa), Antwerp (Spain), Amsterdam (Dutch), and London (England)... all in the English channel).

It's a more realistic setup in my opinion.

edit - I agree, it hasn't been announced but, based on the evidence teased out to us, it definitely looks like a new end node in Genoa is replacing both Sevilla and Bordeaux end nodes.

<edited post, rewritten for clarity, forgot Bruges, though under great pressure, was still a player in the English channel for the first 50 years of the game period, so I figured they deserved a place on the list.>

 

[Em Ay Ef]

In addition to that, countries that dominated commerce and trade in Europe during the game period happen to be in the Genoa, Venice, and English Channel nodes. (e.g. the Italian merchant republics like Florence, Genoa and Venice; some of the first deposit banks were chartered in Barcelona, Venice and Genoa; Trade dominance in the passed between Antwerp, Amsterdam, and London in the English channel).

It's a more realistic setup in my opinion.

exactly. i sometimes wonder if Lübeck deserves to be an end node (representing the Hansa etc.), but i'm rather fine with it feeding into the Netherlands as it does now.

Excellent arguments.

thank you.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

exactly. i sometimes wonder if Lübeck deserves to be an end node (representing the Hansa etc.), but i'm rather fine with it feeding into the Netherlands as it does now.

I am fine it feeding into the Netherlands too. The western end of the Hansa trade zone was far and away the largest part of the network by game start and was home to the financial centers that dominated the north during the game's time frame.

 

[chrnno]

If that is true there goes my first game to be Portugal without expanding in Europe. Losing a lot of trade to Castille/Spain is still fine since they at least also bring a lot but now I would have to take provinces from Aragon and Provence.

 

[Homusubi]

Finally, a reason for creating marches!

P.S. I am starting to get concerned for the sake of the Dutch particularists here. Go on, split Gelre, you know you want to.

 

[Golladan]

We could be wrong though, perhaps there are no end nodes any more.

Not likely.

 

[grommile]

We could be wrong though, perhaps there are no end nodes any more.

I think you can safely assume that if they had completely rearchitected the trade system (since the current system is built on the fundamental assumption that the trade network is a directed acyclic graph), that would have gotten at least as much prominence and fanfare as the new province development system.

 

[Krajzen]

Personally I would so love to see patch notes... They have to be super long and interesting

I really hope we will see them last Thursday before release

 

[gendalv]

Please overhaul the power projection (pp) system, because the current system is pretty dull and eventually you just lose all the options of getting any pp..

- It shouldn't be tied to your rivals.
- You should get 5 pp for concede defeat - so that this option would make more sense.
- Enforcing to break alliances should give 1.
- Humiliate should depend on the BT of the losing side and how much warscore you've got (since it's the only option you can take). This one may stay attached to your rivals, since the bonus is usually substantial.
- You should get an additional monthly pp decay modifier, if you weren't dominating your capital trade node last month.
- You should get a bonus monthly pp generation modifier for dominating foreign trade nodes (the ones you don't have any provincial trade power).
- overall pp decay should depend on your MAX land+0.5navi force limit and current prestige.
- Defender of faith should get overall pp decay reduced.

something like that

 

[grommile]

- You should get an additional monthly pp decay modifier, if you weren't dominating your capital trade node last month.

For merchant republics, sure. For many other countries, this would (to me) feel really railroady. "Want decent PP retention as Brandenburg? You're gonna have to kill the Hansa first."

 

[Homusubi]

For merchant republics, sure. For many other countries, this would (to me) feel really railroady. "Want decent PP retention as Brandenburg? You're gonna have to kill the Hansa first."

Well, you can imagine Brandenburger merchants of the time blaming the Hansa for all their problems, can't you?