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EU4 - Development Diary - 23rd of October 2018

Hello! We’ll finally reveal some features of the upcoming Immersion Pack coming with the 1.28 patch. However I need to warn you: HEAVY USAGE OF CODER ART INCOMING!

Our artists nor me have had time to get our hands on the new features yet to make sure the interface is up to par for user usage. So everything is just how the programmer left it. Terrifying thought.

We’ll start with a feature only available to the Catholic Iberians. Establishing Holy Orders. Keep in mind numbers are as usual up for tweakage!

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These are inspired by Jesuit Reductions in the new world but an Iberian nation can put them anywhere as long as the nation own the entire state and that it is fully cored and stated. The available orders are: The Society of Jesus, The Order of Preachers and The Order of Saint Francis.

When an order is selected for a state these following effects are applied to all provinces in that state.
  • Jesuit Order
    • +1 Tax Development
    • 1.5% Local missionary strength
    • -10% Local Build Cost
  • Dominican Order
    • +1 Production Development
    • Removes slaves if trade goods and replace it with something else
    • -30% Culture Conversion Cost
  • Franciscan Order
    • +1 Manpower Development
    • -3 Local Unrest
    • -0.05 Local Monthly Devastation
Each of these costs 50 monarch power to put in place, 50 of the type that order represents. Administrative for Jesuits, Diplomatic for Dominican and Military for Franciscan. As an overlord of a colonial nation you can still place these in their land. The AI will know if a player is involved and restrain itself from placing these orders themselves letting the player optimize their usage.

For the few that manages to recreate the Cremé Pheonix, an Andalusian Muslim, we'll see what we can do for you ;)



Next Feature is one for every colonizer which we have done together with trying to improve the Colonial Diversity, to try and prevent the Colonial AI to spend so much dip points on purging away cultures. Instead allowing the Americas to become the melting pot of cultures it was. Also yet again I warn you that everything you see is in a state of work in progress.

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With Expulsion of Minorities feature you can now tell those damned Puritans in East Anglia to head off to Plymouth Harbor and get on the Mayflower.

Using this costs you diplomatic points akin to how much it would take to culture convert in that province, but upon colony completion it both converts the religion and culture of the province while making the colony have the old religion and culture of home. Also upon completion you get some extra development in the finished colony based on how big the home province were for the minority you sent to live in the colony.

Besides the Culture conversion cost modifier reducing the cost to do this action, in Exploration ideas there is now an idea that will also reduce this cost if you own the Immersion Pack.



Now I’m going to hand it over to our beta who have helped us out with the map in this iteration and helped us overhaul the Spanish Main.

Hello, I’m Evie. You may remember me (as GuillaumeHJ) from old Dev Diary classics like “How to add provinces to Western Africa without getting bored” and “There’s no such thing as too many provinces in North America”. For those of you who joined us since Art of War: nice to meet you.

As you can probably gather, I’m here to talk to you about more map changes. After all, it’s one thing to add provinces to Spain, but much of Spanish history in the Europa Universalis timeline happened outside Spain, in the part of the world that would receive the apt name of “Spanish Main.”

Stretching from the coast of Texas all the way to the mouth of the Orinoco, across the Caribbeans, and back into Florida, the Spanish Main was the heart of the Spanish colonial empire, where the great Treasure Fleets sailed to gather the wealth of the New World. As a result, the “Spain” update also includes extensive additions to the region.

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Map-wise, the changes are extensive – upwards of eighty new provinces and twenty new tags in Mesoamerica, Central America, the Southwestern United States, the Caribbeans, Florida, Colombia and Venezuela. But Cuba and Hispaniola are now up to nine provinces. Colombia and Venezuela get a plethora of new provinces as well along the coast, bringing them much closer to the density found in Central America. The lion’s share, of course, goes to Mexico, especially the heart of Mesoamerica.

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The most important (and by far the most requested) of those provinces are, without a shadow of a doubt, the two we split off from the original Mexico province, representing Texcoco and Tlacopan, the two cities that (along with Mexico-Tenochtitlan) formed the Aztec Triple Alliance. Reducing the Valley of Mexico and the Aztec power base to a single province always felt wrong, so when the opportunity came to update the region’s map with smaller provinces, adding these two was the very first item on the list of changes that needed to happen.

More than new provinces, though, the heart of the update is the new tags. Nine in Mesoamerica proper, six in the Mayan regions, six in the deserts around the US/Mexico border, and one each in Central America and Colombia bring a great deal of depth to the region. Who are they? Read on to find out.

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Mesoamerica

Northwestern Mesoamerica, beyond Colima and the Tarascans, is often thought of as a void, but actually it was a Greece-like patchwork of cities. Representing them all is beyond the scope of this patch, but we’ve added two of the more significant local powers, Tonala and Xalisco, to bring relief to the area.

At the northern edge of Mesoamerica lived a plethora of people that the Aztecs collectively called the Chichimeca (roughly compared with the Greek “Barbarian”). Though they didn’t have the great cities of Mesoamerica proper, they played a fundamental part in regional history, and provided formidable resistance to Spanish expansion for half a century. For them, we’ve added three tags: Otomi and Guarames are two of the more significant people, while Chichimeca covers a variety of smaller groups.

Near the Chichimecan, we find a historical oddity: a Mayan group that wandered far from Yucatan and Central America, to the opposite end of Mesoamerica, the Huastec people.

Closer to the Aztecs, a number of additional states represent various regional powers of some note. To the south, Coixtlahuaca, a mixtec kingdom, fell early when their king defied the Aztecs. To the south-east, Teotitlan became a loyal ally of the empire. To the west, meanwhile, Matlatzinca served as a buffer between Aztecs and Tarascans - until the Aztec invaded it, precipitating war with their powerful rivals.

The South: Mayans, Central America and Colombia.

Further south, the Yucatan peninsula was home to about sixteen Mayan polities in this timeline. Having them all would, again, be impossible, but instead of just having the two rival dynasties of Cocomes and Xiu (whose rivalry dominated Mayan politics in the era), we’ve added two of the better known late post-classic city-states, in the form of Can Pech (Campeche) and Chactemal (Chetumal).

In south-eastern Mexico, a pair of additional Mayan tags add depths to the Tabasco and Chiapas regions. In the former, they’re the Yokotan (or Chontales), who claim descent from the ancient Olmec civilization. In the later, the Tzotzil, one of the more significant local group, serve a similar role.

In Honduras and Guatemala, the Kiche kingdom no longer can afford to get complacent – their perennial rivals (and erstwhile vassals), the Kaqchikel, are now in the game plotting to gain the upper hand, while further east, the Chorti people could also turn into quite the threat.

In Colombia, the Tairona, sister people to the Muisca (who are already in) form a new addition at the northern edge of the country, where the last of the Andes come to die in the Atlantic.

Last, but not least, we have our first non-Mayan Central America tag, based in the coastal jungles of Nicaragua: the Miskito people, who remained independent of Spain long enough to become a British protectorate instead.

The North: Pueblos and Natives.


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To the north, we find ourselves drawn to the upper end of the Rio Grande valley. There, the old Pueblo tag has been split in three to represent the various groups that together formed the Puebloan people. In addition to the old Pueblo tag (now limited to the Rio Grande valley itself), we now have the Keres tag (covering famous pueblos like Acoma and Zia, to the west of the Rio Grande), and the Zuni one, near the New Mexico/Arizona border.

Beyond the Rio Grande valley, our additions take the form of Native American tags. Adding depths to the Apachean people on top of the already-present Navajo and Apache tags, we find the Lipan and Mescalero ready to make trouble for colonizers in New Mexico and Texas, where they were a formidable obstacle to the Spanish historically. Further west, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, California finally get representation of its native people in the form of the Yokuts. Finally, in the deserts of north-western Mexico, the Yaqui people, who resisted Spanish then Mexican dominion into the twentieth century, join the fray.

Together, all these additions bring a lot more depth to the areas of the map that ended up being conquered by Spain.


Thanks Evie! Next week I'll be back to talk about more features, one of which that Sweden had quite an excellence of building ....
 
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Hi, people read old forum entries? or is that the system saying there are new entries? I usually lurk in the reddits.

So first of all, I feel I should clear out that I am from Queretaro, so I have 2 main points on this:

1. The part about Chichimecas being kind of Barbarians is not exactly correct, a chichimeca, unlike the established groups with Altepetls were groups of people who had neither an Altepetl nor had a recognizable ruler with Tollan blood, hence why they were chichimecas, because they lived in houses called chichimecs, this was neither seen as good or bad (or so Sahagun, Tezozomoc and Chimalpain say), so for example the Mexica were Aztlaneca-teo-chichimeca-mexica before founding Mexico-Tenochtitlan and become Aztlaneca-teo-Tenoshcah-Mexhicah after electing their first tlatoanis related to the Tollans by Azcapotzalco.

Now as you pointed out the Otomis did have a variety of Altepetls especially around the Bajio zone of modern Mexico (and bear in mind the ones featured in the diary are not the ones from this region, but the ones from further north), clearing the first condition, and the thing is, they also had a line of Tollan-blooded rulers: the decendants of "king" Oton, the otomitls (who by the way has a very funny history), and unlike even the Culhuacans who just allied the Tollans, Oton was DIRECTLY related to the Tollans, clearing the 2nd requirement for NOT being considered Chichimecs.

2. I think you're confusing Chichimec groups, with ACTUAL barbarian groups, and since you mentioned one of the most famous ones already, we can talk about them: the Jonaces.

The Jonaces WERENT a chichimec group (in fact they usually raided chichimec communities like as you mentioned the Pame and the Ximpences ), they WERE a barbarian bunch, the DID performed raids on communities, and WERE a truly savage group that is said abducted women to rape them and then left them to die as their nomadic life was "too harsh for women to bear", but notice that they dont share both characteristics of the Otomis, namely: Tollan relation AND Altepetl ownership.

I compared Chichimecs (in a broad form) with "barbarians" from Europe, not hunter gatherers from central Australia. Also pointed to the gradual change from city states in central Mexico to progresive less dense, organized and nomad peoples the further you move away to the north. There was common even for Chichimecs to call "savage" the next ones, like Zacatecos conplained about the Guachichiles.

Is not hard to find academic papers and historical chronicles that call both Otomis and Jonaces "Chichimecas".
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/aztecs/Chichimecas.pdf
http://www.historicas.unam.mx/publicaciones/revistas/nahuatl/pdf/ecn44/912.pdf
https://read.dukeupress.edu/hahr/ar...s-in-the-Sierra-Gorda?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Now they also point to how Otomis were the "more civilized" Chichimecs (Sahagún), and Jonaces some of the "more savages". But the fuzzy line between each group, and the progressive advance of the spanish-chichimecan frontier is the reason why we have now such broad range of "Chichimecs".

So my point was that devs where not realy wrong about otomies being chichimecs, if there are many chronicles and academics that have this position. BUT I agree with you that Otomis on game must be at the side of the proper city states, instead of being grouped with nations like Zacatecos. Especially if on game Otomis have provinces like Metztitlan and Xilotepec.

Talking about Otomis, It would be awesome if you can share some proposition for Otomi national ideas :). Since looks like devs didnt add any new mesoamerican ideas with the next update :(.
 
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I compared Chichimecs (in a broad form) with "barbarians" from Europe, not hunter gatherers from central Australia. Also pointed to the gradual change from city states in central Mexico to progresive less dense, organized and nomad peoples the further you move away to the north. There was common even for Chichimecs to call "savage" the next ones, like Zacatecos conplained about the Guachichiles.

I didnt compare them to " hunter gatherers", that term is fine for defining early neholitic groups, not the complex societies of the last 12,000 years, and honestly I kind of recent the implied comparison of my definition of the Jonaces to Australian natives, I said they were vertiable savages because their recorded actions show them as such, and I dont only need to go with Sahagun, local writing here tends to come to the same conclusions, for example in: Porfirio Rubio Rubio, un lider revolucionario de la Sierra Gorda (Francisco Ivan Hipolito Estrada), which takes time to define the Bajio Sierra through colonial records comes to the same conclusion, but that is not because of an intrinsic characteristic of the Jonaces shared by Australians, simply their actions, and again that comparison is something I wholeheartedly disagree with.

The other crucial point I want to repeat is that the term "Chichimeca" didnt entail a derogatory meaning like "Barbarian" does, after all, all the main powers in the Valley of Mexico had been originally Chichimecs, the Mexica for example had been: Aztlaneca-teo-chichimeca-mexica before founding Mexico-Tenochtitlan.

There was common even for Chichimecs to call "savage" the next ones, like Zacatecos conplained about the Guachichiles.

Ah, but neither the Zacatecos or Guachichiles are Otomi, and considering the level of respect the Otomies commanded with the dominant Central Mexico empires and their level of political influence such comparisons to them sound risky at best:

- Remember Otomi captives were as highly regarded as Zapotec or Tarascan captives to Mexica warriors.
- Remember that both the Triple Alliance and the Tarascan Empire had "knight" orders dedicated to Otomies.
- Remember it was the Otomi's siding with the Netzahualcoyotl alliance that spelled the final phase of the war against Azcapotzalco.
- Remember that it wasnt a coincidence the Tarascan Empire put Otomi communities in the neutral zone with the Romula... err the Triple Alliance.

And again, so far as I know neither of those mentioned groups had Tollan blooded rulers, which IS the case with the Otomies.

Is not hard to find academic papers

Ah, but interestingly enough your easy to find papers and historical sources are also comiting easy to avoid mistakes, for example (source: Diccionario de la Lengua Nahuatl o mexicana, editorial Siglo Veintiuno / Vocabulario en Lengua Castellana/Mexica; Fray Alfonso de Molina (research by Miguel Leon Portilla)):

- The first papers says that "the term (chichimeca) is variously used to designate peoples from the North... and has been variously translated as "sons of dog", "roper suckers"..."
Leaving aside that the geographical inconsistency of the use of the term, nahuatl doesnt work like that, the particle terminations denote properties, for example, the "co" particle denotes an Altepetl, it can be translated as "place of", so we have: MexiCO (place of the mexica), TexcoCO, TlatelolCO, XochimilCO, etc..., in this case the "ca" particle denotes "a people of", so the MexiCA, are "the people of Mexi (another name for Huitzilopochtli)", and consecuently in nahuatl the chichimeca are "the people of the chichimec" as lacking an Altepetl they live in Chichimecs.
- The second then contradicts your first source (not a great sign I have to say), and is honestly is a little consfusing, so it says that the mexica called the spanish and their allies "tenimes", so, first of all, the word is actually "tenitl", "tenime" is a conjugation and it specifically denotes "rude foreigners", so for example a "teni-tlacotli" is a "rude slave/capture", and is not related to the word "chichimec", but it IS associated to the word "otomitl" (why?), instead of chichimecs, the problem is that otomitl is not a word, its a line from Otontecutli, so both are not intercheangeable...
- 3rd source is not included and as I dont own it nor can read it I'll skip it.

But since we are doing linguistic arguments, allow me to put forth the actual definitions of the discussed words:
- Chichimecatl: Those who live in Chichimecs, the tribes that replaced the toltecs in the Anahuac at the end of the 12th century.
- Otomitl: Inhabitants of (but not limited to) Tullan and Xilotepec.
- And very important for our discussion, Otontecutli: First historical chief and diety (remember this is a running theme Quetzalcoatl and Huitzilopochtli also have historical counterparts) of the otomies.

But the final idea is the same, the otomies are not chichimeca simpley because, well, they arent, they have an Altepetl (or more than one , like the Alcolhuas and the Tecpanecs who inhabited Texcoco and Tlacopa respectively, the other 2 members of the Triple Alliance) and had a tlatoani: Otontecutli, Chichimecs were Chichimecs because they had neither of those things.

As for ideas... well, the otomies were famed for their martial prowess and nihilistic view on life, they were often used as "knightly orders" by the great empires of the region, and its not uncommon that they'd be found just wandering about looking for wars "worthy" of being fought, so I dont think its particularly important, anything that goes with Discipline and Morale and some Diplomatic Reputation or Mercenary cost reduction of sorts would be more than acceptable in my opinion.
 
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Now that dust has settled, I can see that this was by far the best dev diary of the Golden Century update, and not just because it's free. Mexico always felt a little empty. Definitely looking forward to trying Mesoamerica next week, if not Portugal or Castille.

Don't know if this is the place to mention, but it would be interesting/appropriate if plains Amerindians could form into Steppe-Hordes with >75% Cavalry ratio and ideas after European contact?
Sioux, Apache and the rest still use generic native ideas.