Hey! Today we’ll be covering Estates which have been getting a huge overhaul in the 1.30. The mechanic as a whole has gotten a rethink from the ground up on how we wanted the player to relate to the mechanic.
So here are some of the goals that we have been aiming for as we worked on the Estates the past year.
There’s a lot going on here, the interface looks nothing like it did before. So let’s get started with the top part which concerns the ownership of land in your realm. Estates no longer own land on a province to province basis but instead have a share of the development of your country.
The land share that the estates have will affect their loyalty and their influence. This land share fluctuates up and down as the country gains development and from some new interactions that are now available. But first besides the estates, the crown also controls some of that development directly. Depending on this control there will be different benefits or penalties depending on if the crown is relatively weak or not to the Estates.
This control of land is mainly affected by these ways:
The bonuses/penalties applied depending on your crown land is done so in steps. You want to hold yourself at 20% or higher crown land as below these modifiers are applied with increasing strength. At 0% land you are in quite a pickle with these penalties:.
At the other end, we have at 50% and higher you start to get benefits for being in tighter control over your country. At 100% you get
Summon the Diet is a bit different. It’s a good tool to keep the Estates happy. Upon using this interaction you instantly get 5% Loyalty to all Estates but also give them 10% Influence. Then each estate will propose an Agenda for you to pick between, each asking for something from you.
Most of the time these will be very simple things but fitting for that estate. For instance the Burghers might ask you to increase production in a province, Clergy might want you to build a Church and so on. Upon finishing Agenda for a specific estate you will also gain more loyalty with specifically them.
This should all be very reminiscent of the old mission system, giving you small bonuses and rewards for simple tasks you can complete quite quickly. Though keep in mind, each time you summon the Diet the estates stack the 10% Influence. Though there is a privilege you can grant the nobles where you empower them to dictate the Agenda of the Crown themselves bypassing that issue. A lot of these agendas have been made, both Generic ones and more advanced Estate specific ones.
Next is the Estate Privileges. The old interactions system is removed as we are moving away from the purpose of Estates being something you squeeze every 20 year for money and mana. Privileges is something you grant to the Estates, to get something out of them, but it usually also means they take something away from you. All Privileges also reduces the max absolutism of the country.
Privileges after granted can only be removed if you have higher loyalty with the Estate than their influence is. When removed their loyalty will reset to 0. Some privileges will remove themselves after certain conditions are fulfilled.
All of the old interactions have in one way or form been translated into the new privilege system, but in a way that fits with something that are not one time bonuses but intended to be longer term. For instance instead of getting +50/100/150 monarch points of your choice, you can now get +1 to your monarch power generation by giving a privilege to the relevant estate. However in exchange they will take 10% of your Crown land. And with how the balance is at start, it means you might only be able to get that privilege for one of the estate, and not all three, unless you are willing to compromise on realm stability.
There’s also unique for nations, for instance Poland starts with the Golden Liberty which grants the Nobility unchecked power. This entire rework will be part of the base game and most of these privileges will be free. But there will also be some unique fun ones that are locked to the Emperor DLC,like various Monopolies on trade goods you can give to Estates which gives you the total production income of 8 years for that trade good in your nation up front.
Most privileges besides their big effects will also usually manipulate the Loyalty, Influence, Crown Land or Absolutism of the country.
Part of moving towards this Privilege system and away from the one time benefit interactions from before, is that we want you to build with the Estates. For instance there are privileges that increase your Governing Capacity. You will as well have it easier to play around with Estate Loyalty as how that is calculated have been redone as part of adding the Privilege system.
There are now proper modifiers for Estate Loyalty and Influence, which might not tell you much if you don’t mod the game. What we have done is that we have separated out so that as a player you can manipulate the equilibrium that the Loyalty is moving towards. In one time effects like the Seize Land/Sale of Titles it still instant change of the Loyalty value of the estate. But this change where you manipulate the equilibrium have been integrated into a lot more mechanics, not only the Privileges, giving you a better opportunity to keep estates happy over a longer time than “just long enough to press this button”.
So in summary what have we changed. Well for one loyalty is not a currency in the way it was before, now you interact with estates when you want to tweak something. Loyalty and Influence of estates is an ever present value that you can see being affected in a lot of different interfaces now. Loyalty will be a lot clearer now on where it will end up if you let time pass, and you can build your country in such a way that an estate will naturally be happy with you. What this means is that it can be less of an exploitative relationship with the Estates and more a mutual one which gives a way better feedback loop to the player that he is not doing something bad.
But even so the Estates are still a double edged sword if you do not take care. Several of the players for the Dev Clash as they were testing things out accidentally ended up creating a state where the King was but a puppet of the Estates.
As usual we’ll be in the thread and answer any questions you might have. Next week we will be talking about Papal and Italian content that is coming with Emperor.
So here are some of the goals that we have been aiming for as we worked on the Estates the past year.
- Estates are something you build, not something you exploit
- Give and Take sort of relationship between Estate & Crown
- Large benefit early, a dead weight when Absolutism comes
- Better integration with other parts of the game
- Better feedback loop for the player in using it and less red numbers.
There’s a lot going on here, the interface looks nothing like it did before. So let’s get started with the top part which concerns the ownership of land in your realm. Estates no longer own land on a province to province basis but instead have a share of the development of your country.
The land share that the estates have will affect their loyalty and their influence. This land share fluctuates up and down as the country gains development and from some new interactions that are now available. But first besides the estates, the crown also controls some of that development directly. Depending on this control there will be different benefits or penalties depending on if the crown is relatively weak or not to the Estates.
This control of land is mainly affected by these ways:
- When gaining development like through conquering land each estate will gain land relative to their influence compared to the rest of the estates. The crown's influence is calculated as a base of 50% +absolutism.
- Developing provinces gives a little bit of control to the crown
- Events will change the ratio of land that estates share
- Crown Land interactions will let you manipulate as well.
The bonuses/penalties applied depending on your crown land is done so in steps. You want to hold yourself at 20% or higher crown land as below these modifiers are applied with increasing strength. At 0% land you are in quite a pickle with these penalties:.
- -50 Max Absolutism
- +0.2 Global Autonomy
- +1.5 LD from Subject Dev
- -20% Tax Modifier
At the other end, we have at 50% and higher you start to get benefits for being in tighter control over your country. At 100% you get
- +15 Max Absolutism
- +1 Yearly Absolutism
- +20% Tax Modifier
- -0.05 Global Autonomy
Summon the Diet is a bit different. It’s a good tool to keep the Estates happy. Upon using this interaction you instantly get 5% Loyalty to all Estates but also give them 10% Influence. Then each estate will propose an Agenda for you to pick between, each asking for something from you.
Most of the time these will be very simple things but fitting for that estate. For instance the Burghers might ask you to increase production in a province, Clergy might want you to build a Church and so on. Upon finishing Agenda for a specific estate you will also gain more loyalty with specifically them.
This should all be very reminiscent of the old mission system, giving you small bonuses and rewards for simple tasks you can complete quite quickly. Though keep in mind, each time you summon the Diet the estates stack the 10% Influence. Though there is a privilege you can grant the nobles where you empower them to dictate the Agenda of the Crown themselves bypassing that issue. A lot of these agendas have been made, both Generic ones and more advanced Estate specific ones.
Next is the Estate Privileges. The old interactions system is removed as we are moving away from the purpose of Estates being something you squeeze every 20 year for money and mana. Privileges is something you grant to the Estates, to get something out of them, but it usually also means they take something away from you. All Privileges also reduces the max absolutism of the country.
Privileges after granted can only be removed if you have higher loyalty with the Estate than their influence is. When removed their loyalty will reset to 0. Some privileges will remove themselves after certain conditions are fulfilled.
All of the old interactions have in one way or form been translated into the new privilege system, but in a way that fits with something that are not one time bonuses but intended to be longer term. For instance instead of getting +50/100/150 monarch points of your choice, you can now get +1 to your monarch power generation by giving a privilege to the relevant estate. However in exchange they will take 10% of your Crown land. And with how the balance is at start, it means you might only be able to get that privilege for one of the estate, and not all three, unless you are willing to compromise on realm stability.
There’s also unique for nations, for instance Poland starts with the Golden Liberty which grants the Nobility unchecked power. This entire rework will be part of the base game and most of these privileges will be free. But there will also be some unique fun ones that are locked to the Emperor DLC,like various Monopolies on trade goods you can give to Estates which gives you the total production income of 8 years for that trade good in your nation up front.
Most privileges besides their big effects will also usually manipulate the Loyalty, Influence, Crown Land or Absolutism of the country.
Part of moving towards this Privilege system and away from the one time benefit interactions from before, is that we want you to build with the Estates. For instance there are privileges that increase your Governing Capacity. You will as well have it easier to play around with Estate Loyalty as how that is calculated have been redone as part of adding the Privilege system.
There are now proper modifiers for Estate Loyalty and Influence, which might not tell you much if you don’t mod the game. What we have done is that we have separated out so that as a player you can manipulate the equilibrium that the Loyalty is moving towards. In one time effects like the Seize Land/Sale of Titles it still instant change of the Loyalty value of the estate. But this change where you manipulate the equilibrium have been integrated into a lot more mechanics, not only the Privileges, giving you a better opportunity to keep estates happy over a longer time than “just long enough to press this button”.
So in summary what have we changed. Well for one loyalty is not a currency in the way it was before, now you interact with estates when you want to tweak something. Loyalty and Influence of estates is an ever present value that you can see being affected in a lot of different interfaces now. Loyalty will be a lot clearer now on where it will end up if you let time pass, and you can build your country in such a way that an estate will naturally be happy with you. What this means is that it can be less of an exploitative relationship with the Estates and more a mutual one which gives a way better feedback loop to the player that he is not doing something bad.
But even so the Estates are still a double edged sword if you do not take care. Several of the players for the Dev Clash as they were testing things out accidentally ended up creating a state where the King was but a puppet of the Estates.
As usual we’ll be in the thread and answer any questions you might have. Next week we will be talking about Papal and Italian content that is coming with Emperor.
