EU4 - Development Diary - 31st of March 2020

[Dr. Quaz]

I thought the idea was that the Decentralisation vs Centralisation was going to basically be a choice between the OP vassal swarm *or* actual unification?

If that's not the case I don't see why anyone would go Decentralisation, Revoke the Privilegia is so OP and would work so well as a counterweight to Renovatio Imperii, but if they're both in the same path that just seems like bad design, especially if the Reichskrieg is as lackluster as the other Decentralisation reforms.

 

[Dsingis]

@Groogy
If I remember correctly, the intent for the decentralization path of reforms was to avoid the fact that revoking the privilege and not uniting the empire was almost always the best way. To give players who want their vassal swarm a dedicated path, and making uniting the empire more viable in the other path.

Now you have changed nothing about the vassal swarm being super powerful, and you did not add any further reason to unite the HRE in the centralization path. In fact it still seems the best to just not unite the HRE and keep the vassal swarm.
Meanwhile the decentralization path just leads to a very weak version of the vassal swarm. The fact that you have to pay a currency to use the HRE swarm makes it a lot weaker than the centralization vassal swarm which will always join your wars (and is even available one reform earlier in the path!)

How does that live up to the intentions you stated waaay earlier, months ago when you first hinted at the new reform system? It seems like it does not actually do what you set it out to do.

 

[Warthull]

We’ve also made it easier for the Emperor to enforce peace within the Empire by being able to ignore the opinion requirement so you no longer only have the Imperial Ban as an option.

Will AI emperors use this very often? Sounds like it could add a major uncertainty factor to playing an HRE minor, not to mention making it much more difficult if its used frequently.

 

[Maxwell Tornado]

Why is revoke still on the centralised path? I thought the entire point to the two paths was supposed to be to prevent players from staying at revoke, instead of renovate.

 

[Skycroft]

I must say I am a little surprised. I thought for sure that the decentralized path would end in the vassal swarm and the centralized path a unified HRE but instead the former gets basically nothing really worth mentioning. This was quite a strange decision.

I like some of the other changes to IA gain and so forth though.

 

[Mr Schnabel]

The decentralized reforms make no sense at the moment, because the central ones are simply much better. I have a vassal swarm that I can use at any time and I can transfer tradepower that generates additional income. if i don't want the vassal swarm anymore, i can press a button to integrate everything. On the other hand i have 3 ducats more income per month, arround 30k manpower and have to handle the re-election. Every few years i can start an imperial war, which behaves like the vassal swarm. For me and some others the decentralized way looks worse because I have to pass one more reform to have my vassal swarm that always has to load with IA before i can use them and have to handle Erbkaisertum. Because of the transfer of trading power, you make even less income than then the few ducats additionally.

Centralization means that the individual princes first give the emperor their rights such as tax law, manpower or forcelimit(% range) and in the last step they lose their complete sovereignty (annexed).
Decentralization means that they continue to retain their sovereignty, but that the emperor, for example, represents the empire in foreign policy. Therefore I see the vassal swarm more on the decentralized side (last reform).

With this change, the player can decide whether he wants to have a vassal swarm, which he does not annex by simply push a button; or additional tax income, manpower and forcelimit and in the last step the complete annexation with known problems like corruption

 

[Yormund]

You have shown, that there is now more options, fine, but uniting the empire still doesn't seem profitable. Why should I take the last reform of centralisation, if it still gets rid of all the modifiers? Just for a new mission tree and new ideas? Especially Austria has both.

 

[Miroku20X6]

Someone convince me this is not a simple and dramatic improvement:

1) Decentralized remains unchanged
2) Centralized remains unchanged, except that you skip right past Revoke and got to Renovatio

Like most people I assumed Decentralized would be vassal swarm and Centralized would be form HRE. Of course, this would have left vassal swarm as superior, and everyone would have gone for this, unless they wanted a one-tag WC.

The novel concept of Reichskrieg is a game changer, however. This enables Decentralized to have vassal-swarm type offensive fire power, but with a few key limitations. 1) they are NOT your vassals, and you will NOT get a WC. 2) they are not your vassals, and you will not get their trade or income benefits

Now imagine that Centralized does NOT have a vassal swarm, just Renovatio. Now we have a REAL decision. Do I want to inherit HRE and get new NI and missions and all sorts of bonuses on way to WC? Or do I decentralize to get the more powerful Reichskrieg, but they are not truly my vassals, and I'd need to work really hard (later revoking reforms and stuff) to try to WC.

This presents an actual balanced choice!!!

 

[Dewey_Master]

I haven't posted in forever, but I have to echo the voices expressing confusion over placing the vassal swarm in the centralized path. What could be less centralized than Austria leading 100 princes into armed conflict? The Reichskrieg seems like a reasonable endgame for the decentralized path. It also seems like a way to keep something akin to the vassal swarm but in a way that is less OP than before: that is, princes would not be vassals, player would have to regenerate IA between uses, there would be complications for a WC victory.

Right now, the centralized model provides better decentralization benefits than the decentralized path and still has the magic full integration button waiting for a 1-tag at game's end. The centralization model should focus on benefits to the Emperor. -10% CCC is a good and thematic boon. Hereditary monarchy also makes sense. Why not include "+n States" so Emperor could make better use of the expansive lands now under their direct control (the benefits of this tier should probably be kept as permanent modifiers after unfiication)?

As it is, what you are calling the "centralized path" is the vassal swarm path.

 

[brantodb01]

What's the point in going decentralised?
I thought the entire reason the idea to allow decentralisation reforms was so players don't always go to the vassalise reform and then stop.
This doesn't seem to have changed

 

[Dralurio]

As some others have said, the vassal swarm and unification on the same path seems counter-intuitive.

I was expecting a special vassal type, similar to daimyos, that automatically fall under the current emperor, but instead of disallowing external wars, disallow internal wars. Maybe only electors stay free? I don't know.

The way it is now the reforms will stay the same. people will go down centralized, which is basically the old reforms anyway, and stay at revoke.
So the, in my experience, most complained about aspect about reforms stays the same.

 

[Battlex]

So if you start as England and become elected emperor are you forced into being a member state and getting down ranked into a duchy? I would prefer that no imperial authority was gained from provinces if the desire is to balance imperial authority gain around the idea of having as many princes as possible.

In an earlier dev diary they told us that in this patch the Emperor will get Empire tier gov, for the duration of his life so just keep getting re-elected.

Will there be an actual incentive to unite the HRE? Any National Ideas? Something? Because as it stands right now, using the vassal swarm is far more effective than uniting the Empire. You actually become weaker as a result of uniting it.

An earlier dev diary showed both a mission tree, and unique ideas.

 

[EquilinT]

Seeing this, I think it might be better to remove Revoke completely, and give the decentralization path a pseudo-vassal swarm (they will join you in wars) that does not count as land ownership in other aspects of the game (so cannot form nations, get province count/dev count etc).

 

[Iferius]

I thought the idea was that the Decentralisation vs Centralisation was going to basically be a choice between the OP vassal swarm *or* actual unification?

If that's not the case I don't see why anyone would go Decentralisation, Revoke the Privilegia is so OP and would work so well as a counterweight to Renovatio Imperii, but if they're both in the same path that just seems like bad design, especially if the Reichskrieg is as lackluster as the other Decentralisation reforms.

Decentralization buffs electors a lot. This could be an interesting choice in multiplayer.

 

[Raeker]

This expansion is going to be the best one yet. Great dev diary, as always!

 

[MaXimillion]

Electors get +0.5 Tax Income per Prince.

Is this monthly, or are you really adding another yearly tax income modifier when most of those have been removed for clarity?

 

[Oporto]

Very interesting, thank you!
A little offtop though:
I understand that most likely we won't see it in EU4, maybe in EU5 (if there's gonna be EU5), so here's the thing:
Could you please consider making a toggle on/off historical AI? That way we could see the sandbox elements preserved along with the railroaded ones...

 

[Iferius]

Ooh, force into HRE CB! Love it

 

[Fekke]

We’ve also added a Force into HRE CB that the Emperor can use. Nations that have their capital in the same continent and that borders the Empire can be forced in through this treaty.

Finally!