EU4 - Development Diary - 3rd of April 2018

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DDRJake

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Feb 4, 2011
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Good morning all. It's Tuesday and that means time for another Dev Diary. As I mentioned in the last non-alcoholic dev diary, we're going to start looking at changes and features coming with the 1.26 and its accompanying, unannounced expansion.

Before that though, we are currently looking to iron out the kinks with the open beta 1.25.1 hotfix (AI allies deciding that money is more important than friendship and nations sometimes failing to explore for a long time). These fixes will be made, applied to the open beta and rolled out in due time.

Governments

The way governments work have remained mostly unchanged for the duration of Europa Universalis IV, still being almost entirely lifted from EU3. While we have added new government types and their own mechanics such as Theocracy devotion, Steppe Nomads and American Natives, the government progression has remained quite stale, where tech sometimes unlocks a new tier within your government tier and you will switch to it at a cost of 100 ADM if you want its better effects, different election times, absolutism etc.

As a feature in 1.26's accompanying expansion this goes out the window and instead we introduce the system of Government Reforms where you will hand-craft your own government through a series of reforms as the game progresses.

The start of any great project starts with burning a few things down, so to set things straight:

All Monarchy types are merged into one
All Republic types are merged into one
All Theocracies are merged into one
All Tribals are merged into one

The differences we had between government types, for example between Administrative Republic and Oligarchic Republic, or Steppe Nomad and Tribal Despotism, will now be modeled through the reforms

Each Government has a starting reform and maximum number of reforms available. When a Reform value ticks up to a required value, a Governmental reform can be made granting a choice of modifiers and effects and advancing Government reform by 1 step. Each bonus gets incrementally more expensive to increase.

Each reform costs 100 Government Reform Progress, plus 50 for each additional reform. Each nation gains +10 Government Reform Progress towards reform per year, multiplied by 1-(its average autonomy across all provinces. As ever, the numbers we talk about today are subject to balancing and can and likely will change by release, but the net effect is that nations who crack down on autonomy are going to have a far easier time passing their government reforms.

We will cover all the different types of governments over the course of a few dev diaries, but today we will focus on the reforms for a Monarchy.

  • Feudalism vs Autocracy
    • Feudalism: +25% Income from Vassals

    • Autocracy: -10% Unjust Demands
    • [Other Special monarchies]*
  • Hereditary Nobility
    • Enforce privileges: +15% Manpower

    • Quash Noble power: +10% Tax Modifier
  • Bureaucracy
    • Centralize: -0.05 Autonomy reduction

    • Decentralize: +2 Accepted Cultures
  • Growth of Administration
    • Clergy in Administration: +1 [HIDDEN] , +5% base loyalty of Clergy

    • Of Noble Bearing: -10% hire leader cost, +5% base loyalty of Nobility

    • Meritocratic Focus: -10% Advisors Cost

    • Seizure of Power: [Early path for Government type change]
  • Deliberative assembly
    • Parliamentary: Enables Parliaments if Common Sense DLC enabled, else -1 Unrest

    • Royal Decree: +5 max absolutism

    • Aristocratic Court: -0.5 Army Tradition Decay

    • States General: +10% Production Efficiency
  • Absolute Rule v Constitutional
    • l'etat c'est moi: +5 States, -15% State Autonomy

    • Regional Representation - 25% lower autonomy in Territories
  • Separation of powers
    • Political Absolutism: +5 max absolutism, +0.1 Yearly Absolutism

    • Legislative Houses: +1 Possible [HIDDEN]

    • Become a Republic

    • Install Theocratic Government
"What about unique government types?"

The game is host to various different unique government types, with their own effects or mechanics. some examples:

  • Shogunate - +1 Diplomat, -25% Envoy Travel Time, +2 Number of states, +5 Max Absolutism. Dynasty is fixed, Enable Shogun-Daimyo mechanics
  • Daimyo - +10% Morale of Armies, 10% Infantry CA. Dynasty is fixed, enable Daimyo mechanics
  • English Monarchy - +0.5 Yearly Legitimacy, -1 National Unrest, 1 states, -30 absolutism, uses Parliaments
  • Prussian Monarchy - -2 Unrest, -0.02 War exhaustion, +3 Monarch Military skill, uses Militarism.

These special tools will now be modeled by unique reforms. In most cases, it will be a special reform on the first level (Feudalism vs Autocracy) ready-unlocked for said countries. We will also be making the system more flexible in that if you fulfill the criteria for having a certain government type, but previously had no way of switching into it, you will be able to change your reform to pick it up. Changing reforms that have already been passed comes at a cost (currently 10 corruption)

This system is still Work in Progress, so expect changes along the way. Here's a screenshot of it in-game at this current time:

government.png

Return of the pink coder-art and overflowing GUI. Games are like sausages, beware of seeing them made.

Next week we will have more information about this feature as well as looking at another reform path. Which shall we look at, Republics, Theocracies or Tribals? See you next week for it!
 
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Is this a progress bar or mana?

Eh a progress-bar I guess? It's not a resource you spend really but you can lose the progress.
 
How moddable will the feature be?
Will there be a hard maximum of categories and options per category?
Will there be moddable side effects of passing a reform, i.e. additional unrest etc?
  • It will be highly customisable, you will be able to mix and match mechanics and modifiers in reforms. There are a few exceptions (E.g. Daimyo/Shogun mechanics)
  • No
  • Yes
 
Sorry if this seems like a silly question but can anyone explain the choices in deliberative assembly? For example, by royal decree, does it mean that the monarch only has the power to call for an assembly?

By Royal Decree means that the King ultimately writes and enforces the law and not an assembly.
I wanted a name for where you essentially goes full dictator and felt that was most fitting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree
 
So Tsardom and Russian Principalities are going to be deleted and Muscovy will have -1 dip point per month from the start?
Looks...interesting? I'm now worried over where my favourite Ambrosian republic and Tsardoms will go (hopefully the reforms will be able to model it).

Unique governments and their mechanics will remain by way of being a reform. For example, There will be a special starting reform for Russians which give them access to the Streltsy etc interactions. No special government mechanics are getting deleted.

Hmm...I see Iberia in the background, is that a hidden clue perhaps where the next DLC will be located? :D
BTW, there's no map change for Western Iberia in that screenshot. Either Jake cut it out specifically for this screen or it's not Iberia, as many here seem to believe.

Iberia is not the focus of 1.26 or its expansion.

Does the previous reforms bonus disappear after you select the "newer" one?

No.

Speculation of advisor rework? Maybe you can have more than one per mana type?

What are you talking about? It's clearly giving you one more [HIDDEN].

Does this mean razing will be usable by most tribal countries now?
After reading this I can´t help but to wonder what will happen to razing and the hordes...

Hordes are my favourite. Razing and other horde mechanics will remain, and will be...I've already said too much. We'll cover Hordes in a future dev diary on Governments, much like Republics, Theocracies and other tribals

Also, this almost goes without saying, but would you say the magic words “work in progress”? Some have already raised some valid points about various naming and potential overpowered reforms.

Everything we're showing for the next wee while is heavily work in progress. names and balance are all subject to change as development progresses.