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EU4 - Development Diary - 23rd of June 2016

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Hello and welcome to today's development diary for Europa Universalis IV. It's actually a well earned(?) day off for me but I'm doing a once unthinkable thing and working a bit from home. Last week I said we would take a look at a very influential dynasty of the time period. Sorry to disappoint all the Velikopermsky and Dandani fans out there, but I had the Osmanoglus on my mind.

It would be an understatement to say that the Ottomans gave the world a good shaking in this time period. Furthermore, they are one of the more commonly played nations in EUIV. We wanted to give them a little something to bring out their unique flavour since it was always a shame that they are a run-of-the-mill Sultanate. It has also been pointed out on numerous occasions the oddity of a situation where you have the Ottoman nation..without an Osmanoglu at the helm.

So to that end, in the still-unnamed upcoming expansion we have added a unique government type for them: The Ottoman Sultanate.

The Ottoman Sultanate does not generate heirs like normal monarchies do. The ruler of the Ottoman Sultanate will have their own Harem to ensure the dynasty lives on. At the age of 30, your ruler will select one of his sons to be the heir to the throne. They will, of course, be of your dynasty

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So an Ottoman Sultanate shall always be blessed by the strong line of Osmanoglus. That is to say unless the Sultan dies without an heir. In that case, they'll still end up with an Osmanoglu. "Blessed" can be a relative term here.

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There are a couple dozen events accompanying this unique government type to simulate the power struggle and intrigue of such a succession system and should add a couple of fangs to that already formidable Ottomans.

While this is unique to the Ottomans, any modders out there can easily allow this for other government types with the has_harem = yes line.

I feel like we're on a roll when it comes to governments and rulers so here's another thing for today's Development Diary. Abdication.

Yes, it has long been a requested feature in Europa Universalis. When Enrique or his low-stat kind just refuses to die you can abdicate and let your next in line take over. This requires you to have an of-age heir and to have either ruled for 25 years or be 60+ years old. It will come with a considerable hit to your legitimacy/unity and prestige but I think we've all had times where we wanted our monarch to Die Please Die.

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Ottoman Sultanate and Abdication are both paid features in the upcoming expansion which we have magically managed to keep unleaked name-wise.

I've been mentioning a lot of paid features lately but it's good to remind ourselves that with all the paid expansions come free bugfixes and features from the accompanying patch. A small change that will be coming up in 1.18 that I want to share is to do with succession wars. I'm not too happy with how right now, they have two conclusions: Either the new overlord keeps their union or the nation fighting them over it take leadership over the union for themselves. Now, we will add a peace option which simply breaks the union for all parties involved.

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Simple, sensible, and added free in 1.18 for those times where you just want to keep the status quo. Warscore cost scales with the junior partner's size.

Happy midsummer everyone, I'm off to....oh, right, I need to tease upcoming Diaries. Hrmm~ Well, we've touched a lot on rulers but would you believe it, we're not quite done with the changes in the throne room. We'll come to that in the future. As for next week, we'll switch it up on the battlefield. See you then!
 
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Just because you've picked a favorite does not mean that son can consider himself safe ;)
Given what will normally happen to non-succeeding sons I don't think you can fault them (or their mothers) for not giving up on securing the succession just because they father prefers someone else right now.
 
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I have a suggestion. Picking a heir should give negative events with other princes, including the scheming, warmongering and the possibility of the heir trying to boss around before his reign actually begins. So picking a heir shouldn't be mandatory by the age of 30, but left as an open option to choose - starting when your ruler hits the age of 30 (not all osmanoglus picked their heirs). Should your ruler die with lots of sons but not a heir you'd have an increased chance of facing a civil war.

Considering it was common that the non heir sons of the Caliph were governors, it would be a fun and realistic possibility.

You should see my comment just some replies before yours. I totally think that the Ottomans aren't shown enough.
 
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Cool features.

@DDRJake Is it possible to use the choose your heir feature to make sure the Orangist canditate in the Dutch Republic is always a Van Oranje? Or at least takes t ;ast name from the Dynastic leader pool and not the generic leader pool?
 
Well not UNBEATABLE, but perhaps stronger than they should be. France can equal them despite being on lower development just because French/German development is just better due to trade nodes/high dev for buildings/trade goods/etc.

Russia on the other hand pretty much never has a hope to 1v1 the Ottomans which is weird considering how history worked. It's pretty much impossible to overcome 10% disc and 10% infantry combat though especially when the ottomans have good manpower and money and more core creation cost reduction.
You are right on unbeatable to be a bit to strong a choice of words ;) It is possible, though it tends to take all neighboring players to cooperate ;) As for France being able to rival them: this tends to not be true due to the fact that in MP western european players face a /lot/ more competition then Ottomans, whom can basically expand for free into the middle east and africa. Sometimes even unopposed into/towards India.
And as for Russia: I completely agree, Muscovy is a glass canon at start (righteously so!) and it takes quite a while before they can assume their ultimate form, by which time Ottos will have eclipsed them far enough for a 1 vs 1 to be totally unrealistic.
 
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Since you're adding succession/government mechanics to the Ottomans, how about fixing the Timurids and giving them their own set of problems, and keep those for the Mughals? Fix their tech group at the same time...
 
I feel like the tribes exploding and having half of the country Shia + Persian separatists can cathegorize as a problem. Why would you kick them even more?
 
Excellent dev diary !

Just there is something I wondering, I think I read somewhere one day that you wanted to remove special government (so Americans republics were supressed) but after you add a new government type especially for ottomans.

I miss something ? just why the americans republic get supressed then ? (Because people pays for that in the DLC american dream I think) [myself included]
 
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This stuff looks very good !
But why would you break the union if you can have it yourself ?

if it's too costly to win enough to get the union you can end with it cancelled instead.
Yeah. But it seems currently it will often be cheaper to get the PU than to release the country. Getting the PU is a fixed warscore. Releasing will often be 100 (unless the PU subject is tiny).
 
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If the Ottoman Empire ceases to exist, but is recreated by rebellion or by peace treaty, will they be guaranteed to still have their unique government type, and will they be guaranteed the same dynasty name?
 
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This looks neat and all, but a buff to the Ottomans? Was that really needed? Historical flavour is one thing, but this is not just a buff, it's hands down the best government type in the game in 1.18.
 
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There are many nations with dynastic names other than ottomans, there are plans for them? and there option for a player that want to change dinasty and the name of the country?