EU4: El Dorado - Development Diary 1: Nahuatl, Exploration & Treaty of Tordesillas

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Wizzington

Game Director (Victoria 3)
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Welcome to the very first development diary for El Dorado, the fourth major expansion for Europa Universalis 4. To kick things off, we’ll be talking about the new Nahuatl religion that El Dorado adds in Central America and also about how the expansion changes exploration and colonization.


Nahuatl
One of the centerpieces of the expansion is the new Nahuatl religion. A number of Central American states, most famously the Aztecs, believed that the world was destined to end and that only the strength of their Gods could prevent it from happening. For the Gods to have enough power to prevent Doomsday, they needed sacrifice - human sacrifice. The Aztecs would go to war to secure captives for these sacrificial rituals, all in the name of keeping the universe together.

In El Dorado, this is represented through a mechanic we call Doom. All Nahuatl states have a ticking Doom value that increases every year based on the number of provinces they own. High Doom increases technology costs and idea costs and should the value ever reach 100 the Nahuatl state will be forced into taking drastic measures to avert Doomsday. The ruling family will be sacrificed, killing your ruling monarch and heir and replacing them with a 0/0/0 ruler. In addition, all of your monarch power is lost and any and all subject states break away as the nation descends into chaos. As if that wasn’t enough, if the doomed state has gained any religious reforms, up to two of these will be lost (more on that below).

To avert Doomsday, Nahuatl states have a few options. The ‘Flower Wars’ Casus Belli gives them the ability to declare war on their neighbours freely while occupying provinces and winning battles will result in Doom being reduced as they secure captives to send to the Gods. If just warring with your neighbours isn’t sufficient, Nahuatl states can also sacrifice ruling monarchs and adult heirs in their vassal states. Doing so will reduce Doom by an amount equal to the total skills of that monarch or heir, but will anger all subject states and make them more likely to seek independence.

If you wish to get out of this cycle of war and sacrifice, you will need to reform your religion. Each of the three new religions (more on the other two in a later dev diary) has their own reform track, and their own unique requirements for passing a reform. Nahuatl states have five reforms they can pass, giving benefits such as colonists, war exhaustion reduction and more diplomatic relations. Enacting a reform requires having at least 5 vassal states, no rebels, positive stability and less than 50 Doom. When enacted, Doom will increases by 25 and all subject states will declare independence, forcing you to go to war to bring them back into the fold. Once you have passed all five reforms, the ‘Reform Religion’ button will be available as soon as you border a Western neighbour. This brings you up to 80% of that Western nation’s technology level and allows you to Westernize. It also permanently disables the Doom mechanic.
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Exploration
Exploring the New World can be very rewarding, but also a bit tedious, as you have to manually control your explorers and conquistadors while they seek out new land for you to colonize and conquer. In the El Dorado expansion we’ve added new systems for both land and sea exploration, but we’ll leave the land exploration for a later dev diary and instead talk about naval exploration.

Those with the El Dorado expansion will have an ‘Exploration Mission’ button in the unit panel that opens a list of possible missions that their explorers can undertake. These include exploring a sea, charting a coastline and even circumnavigating the globe. When you send a fleet on a mission to explore a sea or chart a coastline they will head towards that province and automatically uncover it, along with surrounding provinces, before returning to port. Charting coastlines can also result in a variety of events as your explorers make landfall and encounter the native population of other continents. Fleets on an exploration mission do not suffer from attrition but you will not be able to divert them from their course and you can’t send a fleet exploring unless it is in port. Furthermore, exploring can no longer be done with a single ship - you need at least 3 Light or Heavy Ships (or a mix of both) to be able to explore.

Nations that have Diplomatic Technology level 9 can follow in the footsteps of Magellan and attempt to circumnavigate the globe. Doing so will send your fleet on a trek from the Straits of Magellan to the Cape of Good Hope. The fleet will take attrition as normal on this mission, but if it makes it all the way around the globe without sinking, you will have successfully circumnavigated the globe. Being the first nation to circumnavigate the globe will give you 100 prestige, while other nations who do so later will gain 10 prestige for a successful attempt.

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Treaty of Tordesillas
Colonization of the Americas wasn’t a free-for-all. The Pope divided the world into Spanish and Portuguese influence spheres that determined who had the right to colonize a given part of the world. In the El Dorado expansion, Catholic nations will be able to gain a similar sanction for their colonization by being the first nation to create a colonial nation in a colonial region while having positive relations with the Papal States. The first nation to do so will be given a ‘Papal Grant’, which speeds up the growth of settlers for them by +10 in that colonial region and slows down the settler growth of all other Catholic nations there by -20. A Catholic nation that violates a Papal Grant also gets -50 relations with both the nation that has the grant and the Papal States.
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That's all for today, but there will be a dev diary every Thursday up until release, so stay tuned!

Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado - Expansion Announcement Teaser
[video=youtube;vYDn6JhHEuw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYDn6JhHEuw[/video]

Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado - Dev's Play 1
[video=youtube;kaq97WPCpiI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaq97WPCpiI[/video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaq97WPCpiI

Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado - Dev's Play 2
[video=youtube;bK53EcmWp1o]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK53EcmWp1o[/video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK53EcmWp1o

Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado - Dev's Play 3
[video=youtube;Ftx_sbEJEF8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftx_sbEJEF8[/video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftx_sbEJEF8

Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado - Dev's Play 4
[video=youtube;qAWOuwVTTQw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAWOuwVTTQw[/video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAWOuwVTTQw

Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado - Dev's Play 5
[video=youtube;8a9rbt-9mho]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a9rbt-9mho[/video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a9rbt-9mho

Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado - Dev's Play 7
[video=youtube;83FrD4ZMfmg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83FrD4ZMfmg[/video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83FrD4ZMfmg

Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado - Dev's Play 6
[video=youtube;DWHAEspX4W8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWHAEspX4W8[/video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWHAEspX4W8[URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK53EcmWp1o"][/URL]
 

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Do the other new religions have doom, or do they have a different system?

They have their own systems that will be the subject of future dev diaries.
 
Great! I really like all of these features, especially auto-exploration. It was so freaking tedious. Also, finally we have a bonus for circumnavigating the globe.
EDIT: Will the reformed Nahuatl relligion be treated as "Pagan" (CB, increased hostile missionary strenght)? It would be nice if there was an option to start a new "top tier" relligion.

The concept of 'Primitives' (CB and such) has been decoupled from religion and is now a factor of tech group.
 
does this suggest that westernized pagans can make real $$$ off of gold?

Yes.

Important corollary: does this mean Sunni Subsaharan Mali won't make any money from its gold until it westernizes? Because that would be a real kick in the teeth.

No, only new world tech groups are considered primitive.
 
The doom mechanic seems a bit bad...And why would anyone want a colonist? I saw from one of the images that for every province you own the faster the DOOM increases

You get to keep the reforms after you reform your religion.
 
The real problem with the Treaty of Tordesaillas mechanics is simply this: Catholicism sucks in this game.

Protestant and Reformed are so much better. There is no good reason to stay Catholic, therefore making this whole system rather worthless. Paradox need to add in some real rewards for being devout Catholic, and better consequences for switching religion. As it is now, it's so easy to switch religion, and the only consequence is a very small relationship penalty. But since even the AI switches away from Catholicism, you always end up on the stronger religious side anyways when the Religious Leagues form up.

Perhaps instead of switching religions immediately, you should have to enable a "Disaster" which puts your country in a religious war for a few years, with lots of religious rebels on both sides (old religion, and religion you are attempting to switch to) and you have to fight alongside the religion you are attempting to establish. Some negative modifiers would include depleted manpower and deserters from your army (possibly even having whole armies/generals dissent to the "old religions" rebel faction).

The key point would then be that any other country can support their religions side in the conflict. Either simply by giving them a "support rebel" type casus belli, or add in some new diplomatic mechanics like "Send Mercenaries" to hire mercenaries which join the rebel armies, or double the effect of espionage actions while a country is in this disaster state.

I think this would make religion in general way more enjoyable. And would really represent the religious conflicts of a nation trying to break away from Catholicism.
 
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The Treaty of Tordesillas is a super-important mechanic for the AI, regardless of how their behavior is implemented with respect to it.

If the AI ignores the Treaty, Catholic AI colonizers are going to hate each other and probably have poor relations with the pope as well. This will break up any alliances between Spain, Portugal, and France (assuming none of these go Protestant) and create a vicious rivalry between three of the four most powerful AI nations in EU4. This would add a lot of unpredictability to the game and may help stem things like France blobbing eastward and the three of them having basically no competition beyond the player in the entire world. Further, AI colonizing will slow way down due to the colonial growth malus.

If the AI follows the Treaty, colonial worlds will be divided between those nations. The effects of this are fairly obvious and don't really need further explanation.

If the AI will sometimes go one way and sometimes go another, you never know what kind of game you're going to get. Some Catholic nations may stay friends as they respect each other's lands while dogpiling the nation that chose to break the treaty. Progress of colonization will be drastically altered, as well as the land struggles on Europe proper.

Further, the fact that this only affects Catholic nations throws another wrench into everything. The game can develop very differently depending on whether England, France, Spain, and/or Portugal wind up converting.

Basically, this mechanic should add a bunch of dynamism to the game even without any direct interaction by the player. The only downside is that this seems to be specific to colonial nations and not trade companies, which means it won't hold for places like Africa or India, sadly. Though, maybe this is for the best, as the first Catholic to hit West Africa could lock down almost all colonization eastward for the rest of the game (AI only, of course).

Catholic AIs will typically try to follow the treaty as long as all the good land isn't claimed, so if you rush to grab everything but the frozen wastelands they're not going to go 'shucks, I guess he called dibs' but it'll be much easier to carve up the new world if you're not greedy.
 
I gotta say I don't care for Paradox's new emphasis on streams for revealing info on their upcoming products. I can read a traditional developer diary much faster than watch a 20-minute video. Also, I'm at work when they happen. *Tries to glean expansion info from muted Paradox stream video, quickly switches tabs and pretend to be reading e-mails when hear boss approaching.*

There will be a written DD as well.