Welcome back to our weekly series of development diaries about Europa Universalis. This time we’ll talk about four new features that will be part of the next expansion.

Free Cities of the Holy Roman Empire
Now the Emperor can designate up to seven free cities in the empire. A free city is a one province minor with a minimum of 10 development.

Free cities provide Imperial Authority to the emperor, as well as manpower and income. A Free City also have some rather nice bonuses to their development.

If a Free City gains another province or leave the HRE. they lose the free city status. And a Free City is always a type of Republic, so countries that aren't a Republic will become one upon accepting Free City status.

A Free City is always protected by the Emperor if attacked, so be careful when expanding in the HRE. A Free City can never be the subject of another nation.

Of course, as the ruler of a OPM, you can always refuse the offer of becoming a free city, and the emperor can spend some Imperial Authority to revoke a cities rights.

Remove Electorate
The next expansion lets you get even more control over your electors. If your religion is now official in the Empire, you can now spend IA to remove the Electorate status of your disloyal Electors.

Pause Westernisation
Sometimes while you are westernising, you end up where you need to use your power for something else, like boosting stability, but currently you can’t. Now we have added the option to pause westernisation. You’ll still get the unrest from westernising, but there will be no events spawning while westernisation is paused. Most importantly though is the fact that your power is accumulating again instead of contributing to the westernisation process.

Retire Advisor
Have you ever sat there with a lot of money, but cursing the options you for advisors. In the next expansion, you can now spend the amount of money it would cost to hire an advisor, and permanently retire him. Within a month, if there is available space in your pool of advisors, you will get a random new one in the same category. Maybe you get the +discipline one you wanted..


Next week we’ll focus on Luther and Buddha.

 

[Gaen]

"Luther and Buddha". I'm sure those to would get along just great

There's a sitcom there.

There is a comic about Jesus and Buddha sharing an apartment trying to adjust to modern life

 

[perhje]

I haven't read through all 17 pages of this thread so forgive me if someone else has brought this up, but if there is going to be a new function to simply pay to retire advisors til you get the one you want, that very much reduces the benefit provided from the +1 possible advisors in the administrative and innovative groups. In essence the only benefit from these ideas would be maybe saving a hundred or so gold in retirement costs, which isn't much of a benefit. Are these ideas going to be changed to something else?

EDIT: At the very least, changed to +2 to acknowledge the reduced value of the idea in light of the new function?

A cost reduction in retiring could be a solution for those ideas

 

[Captain Frye]

Pause Westernisation
Sometimes while you are westernising, you end up where you need to use your power for something else, like boosting stability, but currently you can’t. Now we have added the option to pause westernisation. You’ll still get the unrest from westernising, but there will be no events spawning while westernisation is paused. Most importantly though is the fact that your power is accumulating again instead of contributing to the westernisation process.

Yeah, let's make westernization even more absurd and easy. In the next patch you should also make westernization a decision so that even a 6 years old kid can do it !

 

[Wagonlitz]

And that's very unplausible. Those Swedish ships would get sunk by Danish forts instantly. Besides, Denmark had one of the largest fleets in Europe until the very end of the game, something which is very untrue for Sweden.

Indeed. Until England stole our fleet we had one of the largest navies in Europe; it was the second largest when the Brits stole it as far as I remember. And the reason they stole it was that they were afraid of it; afraid in the sense that they feared that if we joined Napoleon our fleet combined with the French one would sink the Royal Navy.
And every time Sweden engaged the Danish navy it had its navy sunk.

 

[3MZocker]

pleas can you add the option that the 30th war can reapeat in other wars

 

[3MZocker]

good job

 

[Homusubi]

The name "Free Imperial City" itself warrants inclusion in the game.

P.S. So who gets the top half of the current Memmingen province then? In reality it was a mess of tiny states and enclaves. Free Imperial City of Nordlingen maybe? Donauworth? Apologies for lack of umlauts.

 

[Golladan]

P.S. So who gets the top half of the current Memmingen province then? In reality it was a mess of tiny states and enclaves. Free Imperial City of Nordlingen maybe? Donauworth? Apologies for lack of umlauts.

Bavaria?

 

[Afinati]

What do you mean by "retire?" If I'm paying money here, does this mean I'm hiring assassins or that I'm doing a campaign of discreditation (which might not be a word)?

 

[Afinati]

Being able to pause westernization sounds like it should come with some drawbacks, like slightly increasing unrest or somethIng. Westernizing is already laughably easy, and you can game it even more if you can pause it to get more points and then solve each temporary problem. It's not a big deal, but it's also not the direction I would have gone.

 

[Morricane]

What do you mean by "retire?" If I'm paying money here, does this mean I'm hiring assassins or that I'm doing a campaign of discreditation (which might not be a word)?

You pay them for another job so that they are out of the picture, I'd assume. Or a pension or something (if you really NEED an explanation for a game(y)-feature)

 

[Incompetent]

What do you mean by "retire?" If I'm paying money here, does this mean I'm hiring assassins or that I'm doing a campaign of discreditation (which might not be a word)?

I think we can pretend they have been shuffled away into some minor position that has little national influence, but maybe allows them to mentor another talented individual. Or let's say you give them enough land that they can become a lady/gentleman of leisure, so they carry on painting or writing books or whatever, but as a private individual.

Going around murdering or exiling your intelligentsia is not going to make any smarter advisors emerge in their place - just ask any totalitarian dictator.

 

[Afinati]

Going around murdering or exiling your intelligentsia is not going to make any smarter advisors emerge in their place - just ask any totalitarian dictator.

Fair point.

 

[Homusubi]

Bavaria?

I see now, I didn't notice it in the screenshot. Ahistorical though. Look at any HRE map and you'll see why. Regensburg (I assume that's the province in Bavaria with no name) should be independent and a Free Imperial City, and the rest should be split into Bavaria-Munich and Bavaria-Landshut (the latter including Ingolstadt).

So Ile-de-France has been renamed. Interesting.

Also, has anyone else noticed the fact that all the ex-Burgundian states have blue armies? Does this mean that Burgundy actualy doesn't change, and the developer has chosen to take this screenshot after releasing a ton of vassals (including Nevers, which can be released from Burgundy even now), to show new nations e.g. Picardie and Rethel, and new cores e.g. Holland owning Breda?

 

[SchwarzerKaiser]

Also, has anyone else noticed the fact that all the ex-Burgundian states have blue armies? Does this mean that Burgundy actualy doesn't change, and the developer has chosen to take this screenshot after releasing a ton of vassals (including Nevers, which can be released from Burgundy even now), to show new nations e.g. Picardie and Rethel, and new cores e.g. Holland owning Breda?

They're PU minors now, not vassals (excluding Nevers, which is a vassal). Also, Holland owning Breda was changed again, it's now owned by Brabant, as you can see in the OP screenshot in this thread.

 

[AlphaSonic]

I see now, I didn't notice it in the screenshot. Ahistorical though. Look at any HRE map and you'll see why. Regensburg (I assume that's the province in Bavaria with no name) should be independent and a Free Imperial City, and the rest should be split into Bavaria-Munich and Bavaria-Landshut (the latter including Ingolstadt).



So Ile-de-France has been renamed. Interesting.

Also, has anyone else noticed the fact that all the ex-Burgundian states have blue armies? Does this mean that Burgundy actualy doesn't change, and the developer has chosen to take this screenshot after releasing a ton of vassals (including Nevers, which can be released from Burgundy even now), to show new nations e.g. Picardie and Rethel, and new cores e.g. Holland owning Breda?

This screenshot is old. We can't see Ravensburg independent or Liege getting another province.

 

[Wagonlitz]

They're PU minors now, not vassals (excluding Nevers, which is a vassal). Also, Holland owning Breda was changed again, it's now owned by Brabant, as you can see in the OP screenshot in this thread.

How can they have so many PUs? Or is it me who completely misremember and PUs don't have diplomatic upkeep?

 

[SchwarzerKaiser]

How can they have so many PUs? Or is it me who completely misremember and PUs don't have diplomatic upkeep?

They do have diplomatic upkeep, which is why I also wonder why they have so many subjects. There must have been a change regarding that as well we haven't been told about yet.

 

[Darkath]

Bavaria?

The province density between germany and france is quite weird ...

 

[SchwarzerKaiser]

The province density between germany and france is quite weird ...

And not final. The screenshot in the OP shows that Germany got a few more provinces since the first dev diary. France may also get something.