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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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Why waist so many dip points on converting religion?
You could use this tool to convert religion if you are, for example, a humanist and are bad at conversion.

For example, you could say "FUCK YOU" to Papacy and as a humanist protestant send them to some remote colony at a cost of some diplopoints, presumably ignoring conversion modifiers.
Not to mention that now converting North Africa to European cultures and religions becomes way easier and more relevant. You can conquer states there (especially as a small power) and then use some diplopoints during colonization to expel some muslims and locals to New World. It's weird, but I could see it working...

Or as Russia you can send to Siberia all those Tatars in low dev territories, converting them to the state. Or even expel Novgorodians, Ryazanians and Ruthenians to Siberia, which depending on bonuses could be a big abuse.
 
Why culture convert at all? it does nothing.
Why waste so many dip points on converting religion?
Why not simply abandon the colony and start over if you need it your culture and religion.

It does nothing besides reducing the Unrest and heightening the provincial gains.
Religion is even more important, and having wrong religion is even more detrimental on country-wide scale. If you don't want to focus on Humanism or Religious ideas, this is a good alternative to get rid of heretics. If it by some chance ignores Religious Zeal modifier, all the better.

I agree that in this form it doesn't really matter to have them in all countries but still it feels weird that Iberians will be the only ones to have them. Not to mention that the holy orders mechanic is only "click this button and get bonuses for province". Not only it is not very interesting it is also immersion breaking which is quite ironic for "Immersion pack". These orders were going to uncolonized land, spread christianity in noncatholic ireas like India, China and Japan. They were the most annoying thing about Catholics for nonchristian countries. And also because of them Christianity became the largest religion. Like them or hate them they are very important part of colonial history. And don't forget that in many cases the orders didn't like each other and competed with each other. It is quite boring to put them in game just for unimportant three buttons that aren't even conected with estate and pappal system in any important way.

I fully agree, which is why I think it should be part of a much bigger system that affects the entire world. Right now Ming and Japan are affected via them by events, but they should really be something that any Catholic can establish, and any non-Catholic can embrace. They helped countries in Catholic lands, did a lot to combat Reformation, they built up the Europe's education system, and as you said they played a big role in politics of non-Christians (though at least for Ming and Japan this is represented via events).
And not only is all this unrepresented, but the current Catholic system is outdated, and does an excellent job in making Catholic gameplay contradictory (Latin Americans must be stupid to be Catholic, Catholic have it better the less Catholics there are in the world, etc.)
 
I really like the new map changes especially in Mesoamerica. I also find the idea of expelling minorities to be a really cool concept.

The only thing i think could be executed differently are the holy orders. I don't like them being a "pp bought state modifiers" (it's an oversimplification, i know) .

I would love them to be more alive with events, or dynamic interactions with other mechanics like diplomacy, armies, maybe the holy see? Maybe something with advisors? Maybe the clergy estate? I think you know what i mean.

They just feel static if they work like presented in the dev diary.
 
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with religious orders it would be a good idea to introduce some decision or event to expel the Jesuits (disqualify them) in exchange for other bonds or the strengthening of the other orders (or substitution by another). Carlos III of Spain did it in history.
 
Map updates are always my favourite part of any expansion/patch. As usual this looks like a massive improvement to the region.

One question though - is there any possibility a tag being added for some of the Florida natives (the Calusa and Timicua come to mind) or for the Quimbaya in Colombia? I realise that you might not want to flood the Americas with new tags, but these regions still seem comparatively empty at the moment, at least in comparison to Mesoamerica and the Andes.

I would also ask about the possibility of tags in the Caribbean, but I assume that there are concerns that there wouldn't be much for a human player to do/interact with until the Europeans arrived in that particular case.
 
The map changes look great (they make the update to Iberia look even more underwhelming), but also don't understand why the Holy Orders are restricted to just Iberian tags. Is this just to justify giving the ImmPack the name "Iberia" even though it is really looking more focused in Central America?
I fully agree, which is why I think it should be part of a much bigger system that affects the entire world. Right now Ming and Japan are affected via them by events, but they should really be something that any Catholic can establish, and any non-Catholic can embrace. They helped countries in Catholic lands, did a lot to combat Reformation, they built up the Europe's education system, and as you said they played a big role in politics of non-Christians (though at least for Ming and Japan this is represented via events).
And not only is all this unrepresented, but the current Catholic system is outdated, and does an excellent job in making Catholic gameplay contradictory (Latin Americans must be stupid to be Catholic, Catholic have it better the less Catholics there are in the world, etc.)
Yes, the Jesuits could easily be given a bigger role in EU4 as part of an update to make Catholic a bit more on par with the other religions. Give them powerful bonuses like allowing you to use missionaries as if they are diplomats, or buying tech cost reductions. And then also negative aspects if you rely on them too much, so that you might actually consider expelling them later in the game like many countries did historically. Plug to my suggestions thread about it.

I also wonder what happens to the decision to "found the Society of Jesus" that Portugal and Spain have. Can you begin a Jesuit Holy Order mission before you actually create the Jesuits? What about the events to Expel the Jesuits? Can you still use the Order after expelling them from the country? :p
 
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Now I kinda wish Iberian update come before Rule Britannia for North America and Canada rework.
Can Brazil get some love too, on behalf of Portugal.
Especially, poor Australia and New Zealand.
 
Holy Order mechanics is not immersive and seems limited, since only Spain and Portugal can use them.

Expel Minority is a nice addition, but it suffers from a couple of misthoughts. First: expelling then should cause the home province to lose development (possibly the same amount the colony increases by). Second: it seems a cheap way of converting and changing culture at the same time while letting your future Colonial Nation to convert and change culture do it instead of you. It’s a very cheap and cheesy way of avoiding troubles.

I look forward to changes to those mechanics, since I see most of the community not convinced by them.
 
any chance to see changes about the reformation of the natives? I feels bad that a tribe becomes an western duchy overnight
 
I sincerely hope this Dev Diary, and the Caribbean images in particular, puts to rest any future argument against fixing Iberia that even remotely resembles "But Iberia is not that important/populated". : p
 
How does it interact with colonization? Do we get a boost to colonization speed (which is logical)?
Also, am I alone who sees Russia sending minorities to gulag Siberia? :D


Not necessarily. For example, how it work for inland colonization and for Muscovite culture in particular as they aren't likely and historically really weren't coastal people.


I wish we got them working for all nations... but having them for Iberia for starters, to see how they would behave would also suffice.
Russia already have special mechanics for colonizing.
 
I sincerely hope this Dev Diary, and the Caribbean images in particular, puts to rest any future argument against fixing Iberia that even remotely resembles "But Iberia is not that important/populated". : p
"If you thought Ireland province density was weird, just wait until you see Hispaniola!" :D

Not that I think it is wrong to give Hispaniola more provinces, there is some excellent history that happened there that we could finally see replicated in EU4, not least of which the Haitian Revolution. I just wish Iberia had been shown the same love.

I also hope that now that we have all these micro-provinces that we get Slave Revolt tags that can spawn in them, like the historical quilombos and maroons.