• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Hello, and welcome back to Europa Universalis IV. Last week we talked about features, where most of them will be in the free update, but todays feature will all be part of the next expansion.

First of all, I’d like to mention that we are adding a new government form called English Monarchy, which England will start with. It will give +0.5 Legitimacy, -1 Unrest, -0.1 Monthly Autonomy and give them access to a Parliament.

So what is a Parliament? It is a new mechanic that Constitutional Monarchies & Constitutional Republics has as well. A Parliament is a political body inside your country, which will have debates that if they pass will give you benefits for a decade.

There is quite a lot of different possible debates, and you are allowed to pick one of five random eligible ones.

To have a debate pass, you need to have a majority of the seats backing the issue. Of course, when an debate is started, all seats are against it, and you need to convince them to back it.

Every Seat of Parliament will have their own reasons you must fullfill to have them back an issue, and their reasons will be different for each issue. A coastal Seat of Parliament may want to be Granted Navy commissions, which reduces your naval tradition, while another Seat may want monetary compensation, while another want some military support, or a fourth want some more autonomy. Luckily, you only have to get half of them to support you to get the debate passed.

Any non-overseas province can be granted a Seat in Parliament and your capital will always have a Seat. There is no way to remove a seat in Parliament, unless the province is lost.

A Seat gets +10% to tax, production & manpower, while reducing autonomy by 0.01 per month. However each Seat increases stability & war-exhaustion costs by 2%.

You are also required to grant at least of 20% of your non-overseas cores a Seat in Parliament, and if you have less than that, one random will be picked for you. There is alert if less than a third of your non-overseas cores have a Seat.

If there is no current debate, nor any active benefits of an issue, you will slowly lose legitimacy & republican tradition. And if a debate fails, you will lose 20 prestige, so it is not the end of the world, but its not something you want to happen all the time.

Here are three examples of current issues that can be pushed through your parliament.

Backing the War Effort is available if you are at war, and will give you +1 stability when passed, and a 10 year benefit of -0.05 War Exhaustion, and +10% Manpower recovery

Charter Colonies
is available if you have either filled the Expansion or Exloration ideagroup, and gives a +10 year benefit of +1 colonist and +20 colonial growth.

Increase Taxes
will give you about 1/4th of a years income, and increase your tax-income by 10% for 10 years.

Of course, all of these values will change the more we playtest it.

Only countries with Parliaments will get a button, opening the Parliament View, near the Papacy & HRE buttons. And yes, the button you talked about last week, in the province interface, is the one indicating if its a seat of parliament or not.

U4wjCj1.jpg


Next week, we'll focus on why we build walls.
 
Hi Johan,
Since you answer so freely about Pdox design/policies I have questions about Respublica:
- do you consider correcting elective monarchy (issues of heirs, legitimacy etc) , or you think that errors are minor, or mechanics is perfect from your point of view
- do you consider enabling/allowing it (and Dutch system) for other countries? - via event/disaster/positive disaster/decision chain
- will you ever add Respublica portrait to loading screens?

THX
 
  • 4
  • 1
Reactions:
All of the republic should have parliamentarism.

Merchant, Noble and Oligarchic Republics are made of small elites in/around the capital, not a parliament representing various parts of the Republic. The Parliaments here are too small for this.
The Parliament here represents an actual large, organized body representing various regions of the state and following strict procedures. It does not represent everything that called itself a Parliament and early Republics were quite dictatorial and un-representative.
 
  • 6
Reactions:
Interesting.
I like the fact that the game is becoming more and more complex.

It's not more complex, I'd say it changes balance of what's important for you. You get less buildings and less opportunities to build it but instead you get more meaningful choice of buildings and nation-specific mechanics. Devs don't just add features, they replace and remove other ones.
 
  • 2
Reactions:
- do you consider correcting elective monarchy (issues of heirs, legitimacy etc) , or you think that errors are minor, or mechanics is perfect from your point of view

heirs and legitimacy are working as we want for elective monarchy.


- do you consider enabling/allowing it (and Dutch system) for other countries? - via event/disaster/positive disaster/decision chain

no. they are tied to gov form.

- will you ever add Respublica portrait to loading screens?

Doubtful.
 
  • 2
Reactions:
It's not more complex, I'd say it changes balance of what's important for you. You get less buildings and less opportunities to build it but instead you get more meaningful choice of buildings and nation-specific mechanics. Devs don't just add features, they replace and remove other ones.

I guess I phrased it wrong. I meant the game is more appealing and interesting for me in the current state. I personally like to play English games quite often, especially in MP so anything focused around their government is interesting for me.
But yeah, you are right, the dev cycle seems to be replacement of features.
 
You are also required to grant at least of 20% of your non-overseas cores a Seat in Parliament, and if you have less than that, one random will be picked for you.
No taxation without representation, the president approves! Well... I guess overseas are not represented, perhaps an event with an option to grant Colonial Nations a seat?

giphy.gif


Question: Is the English government a locked type like some government-types are or can you upgrade away from it? Can you only upgrade to Constitutional or into anything (like Absolute Monarchy) ?

Next week, we'll focus on why we build walls.
Looting?
 
Last edited:
  • 1
Reactions:
no. they are tied to gov form.

I might have phrased it in a wrong way.

Will any other country be able to select/receive Elective Monarchy or this is Poland/PLC exclusive (the same for Dutch Republic and their factions. I guess the answer is no.
 
Shouldn't a Parliament be able to approve a declaration of war during a Regency?

Click 'Declare War' button, select CB and everything.
The 'I do' button is now 'Table the issue', which puts you in the Parliament UI where you need to convince the provinces with a seat to approve the war.
 
  • 38
Reactions:
...
Question: Is the English government a locked type like some government-types are or can you upgrade away from it? Can you only upgrade to Constitutional or into anything (like Absolute Monarchy) ?

Maybe they need Cromwell disaster to end it :)
similarly like PLC can switch to Absolute

likely, and that 10k garrison in Stockholm
 
  • 3
Reactions:
Exclusive change for England, one of the most boring countries possible? Meh

But most of those mechanics working also for Constitutional Monarchy and Republic is awesome. Now it seems they will be my 'final forms'. Though Absolute Monarchy will look poor in a comparision.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
I have a few, thoughts about new parliament system.


First of all I think it is a move in good direction, but how it was presented in the OP brings to my mind visible flaws rather than joy of seeing good changes being made.


1. I agree with users expressing that desire for parliament system to be linked with more than just debates. It would make it more interesting and less shallow. I mean if there is parliament in a country which is not just a monarch's puppet show, it would have a saying in most issues, choosing polices, ideas, going to war, making alliances and all that stuff that is prerogative of a monarch in centralized absolute monarchy.


2. I can’t see why granting a seat in parliament for representatives of a province would make them harder to convince for the war effort or to stabilize the country, if anything it should be easier then, as people would think they have a voice that would be heard. Instead the cost of upkeeping new administration branch could be portrayed by giving, say -10% tax, production and manpower malus to any province which has a seat in parliament and something like -1RR in those provinces or some other more balanced bonus. I just feel that what Johan presented should be the other way around as it appear more logical to me as you build administration wit money, and giving representatives to a province should result in less monarch/cabinet effort in stabilization of said province (I am talking about spending MP to raise STAB).


3. I can’t see the reason why we couldn’t tie provinces support to factions that could resemble those from merchant republics. It is only natural that delegates would form parties, or groups with certain views and desires. Now player’s task would be to maneuver between those groups, and give them concessions as a whole, not to each one province ( as in big parliaments it will become a clickfest). Provinces allegiance to one party could be decided by religion, culture, wealth, manpower, or some random events. So that high trade power / production province would support party representing merchants, high basetax would be more keen on party that emphasizes stability, provinces with true faith and accepted culture would support monarchy while those which don’t fit in your empire would support party that would grant them more autonomy. It could really work with new province development system.

Then parties could also form coalitions but that would be pretty complex so I think having 2 or 3 of them should be sufficient to portray different desires in your nation. As I mentioned parties could be made to be like factions in ming/merchant republic, granting specific bonuses but also limiting your actions, so for example you can’t declare war on non-rivals if trade faction is in power. But then again it could be made more alive with random events allowing or banning you from certain actions for a set amount of time.


4. Finally I hope English Monarchy will get event chain to transform it into absolute monarchy ( to portray Tudor dynasty reforms) and then if player chooses to transform it could be one of the triggers for Cromwell civil war later on.


5. Also it would be good if CN could get representation. Without it tariffs would be grater but liberty desire also. Numbers should be significant. With representation both would go down a bit. This all could be developed in more complex and alive-like system of interacting with your colonies via events and decisions.
 
  • 16
  • 1
Reactions:
I do think that having to take small penalties to gain support in specific provinces just isn't enough for this to be a worthwhile mechanic.

I've got a few ideas that might make it more interesting. First off, I think each province with a Parliament should have a loyalty score, which determines whether or not that province will support your actions. Periodically they gain demands and dislikes. Demands can be stuff like developments, a desire to be at peace, adopting certain ideas, taking special decisions, ect. Dislikes can be stuff like being at war, developing technology, converting religion or culture of provinces, ect. Alternatively, it could be a demeanor of the province which have fixed likes and dislikes. Doing what they like increases loyalty, doing what they dislike decreases loyalty. Overextention and unrest in a province decrease loyalty. You can also fulfill a request from a province every five years at a small penalty for a one time boost to loyalty. If you have the loyalty of at least half of your provinces, then you gain bonuses. Lose too much loyalty, or if the loyalty of a single province gets too low, then unrest starts to build up. Stability is lost. Eventually you'll end up in a disaster situation.

The other main idea is factions in your parliament. Basically groups of provinces that have a common demand for the player that has a much bigger effect then any of these smaller ones. Stuff like: locking out the use of missionaries, forcing you to gain an increased/decreased modifier, requiring you to declare war on a rival, to break off an unpopular alliance or royal marriage, to complete a specific mission, demanding that the king abdicate or disown a low claim heir, ect. Actions that are a big deal and will impact your game significantly, but give you a lot more support instantly. Hopefully there would be lots of ones that you can't just finish immediately, but take some time and effort to do.
 
  • 9
  • 2
Reactions:
If there is no current debate, nor any active benefits of an issue, you will slowly lose legitimacy & republican tradition.
i was really happy about this but i realized that your colonies don't count as an overseas province. will this replace the tariff mechanic if you have a parliament? i agree with the "there's not too many things to do in peace" line. maybe autonomy can be tied with a local noble and hopefully there's a bunch of different buttons for intrigue.