Hello and welcome to another development diary for Europa Universalis. This time I’ll talk about a new feature for our soon to be announced expansion. This is the mechanic we called Hegemony.

The purpose of this feature is to create a greater narrative for the endgame, but there are two cases in which this will become the most used one.

First of all, our goal was to create something for those of you who like to conquer the world, and make part of that more interesting, and hopefully less tedious.

Secondly, our goal is to create an interesting and dynamic last century in larger multiplayer games.

So what is a Hegemony then?

A Hegemony is something a Great Power can proclaim when they fulfill certain conditions.There are 3 different types of Hegemony, each excelling in their own area available to Great Powers. They do come with their own requirements to become Hegemon and you must excel in their specific area. The AI will proclaim Hegemony whenever they can.

What is interesting is that there can only be one of each Hegemon, and a Hegemony is lost when you lose a war, no matter how you lose it.

Proclaiming a Hegemony gives you a bonus which partially depends on which Hegemony you have proclaimed, and the longer you keep your Hegemony, the bigger your scaling bonus gets, and finally when you reach max progress you gain a further finisher. Currently it takes about 20 years for a nation to get their Hegemony Power maximised, but that's subject to tweaking.

A Hegemon can not be allied with one of the other two Hegemons, and all other nations get a relation penalty against you. A Hegemon gets a very nice power projection boost, and will also gain score at a higher gain, while any nation allied with them gets less power projection and score.

All Hegemons have -0.1 monthly War Exhaustion and a +25% to Spy Defence, and all get 10% cheaper power costs when they have their hegemony power maxed.

Let's take a look at the different Hegemonies then.

Economical Hegemony
A Great Power with a monthly income of 1000£ can proclaim this Hegemony.

The base bonus is +100% manpower on all mercenary companies recruited, and the 100% power bonus is +50% Global Trade Power

The scaling powers go up to.
+33% Mercenary Discipline
+25% Trade Goods Produced
+25% Tax Income


Naval Hegemon
A Great Power with 1000 Heavy Ships can proclaim this Hegemony

The base bonus is +20% Naval Morale, and the 100% power bonus is +50% Naval Engagement Width

The scaling powers go up to.
+100% Naval Force Limit
+200% Sailors
+200% Blockade Efficiency


Military Hegemon
A Great Power with 500 Infantry Regiments can proclaim this Hegemony

The base bonus is +20% Land Morale on all mercenary companies recruited, and the 100% power bonus is TO BE DETERMINED.

The scaling powers go up to.
+10% Discipline
+30% Manpower
-10% Land Maintenance

Please remember that no numbers are finalised yet, and also that the Great Power mechanics will be unlocked by this expansion as well..

 

[Snake Pliskin]

I LIKE THIS

 

[flogi]

I don't usually comment DDs, but after reading several posts in this thread I would like to give my opinion to @Johan:

1- Pressing a button and receiving a candy features are bad and boring. It just does not add any agency to the player.
2- Making snowballing even easier is bad and boring. It simply makes the challenges go away. If anything, being an Hegemon should do things even more complicated.
3- Giving already existing bonuses over already owned bonuses is bad and boring. Bonuses should be unique, pretty much as Global Power does. Actually, expanding GP features by being an Hegemon combines finely and makes things more interesting.
4- As it has been suggested, dynamic requisites should be the way to go: like owning a percentage of the total military forces, owning a percentage over world's economy, etc... it makes the goal to be alive and makes the competition a thing, because the goals change all the time.
5- I would suggest that becoming an Hegemon creates a coalition-like thing against you. It simply makes sense from a historical/gameplay point of view. Simply giving a CB won't do much if nobody can beat you. Besides, some kind of defensive coalition would make things more difficult to the Hegemon to expand, as people unite out of fear.

Just my two cents.

Very good post!
I'd only add to 5 that hegemons should still be able to ally, arbitrary restrictions in that area don't help.

 

[Aldaron]

Very good post!
I'd only add to 5 that hegemons should still be able to ally, arbitrary restrictions in that area don't help.

Yeah, I do not like hard blocks either.

 

[PiterCoffer]

Instead of generic bonuses I would like the hegemons to get unique ones (like for military hegemony being able to intervene in any war without limitations, for economic hegemony stronger embargoes that don't give maluses to you and the ability to pressure weaker countries into embargoing one of your rivals with a diplomatic action, for naval hegemony something like other countries have to ask you for military access to be able to move their ships into sea provinces that border one or more of your provinces and none of theirs, the options are many)
I really think eu4 would greatly benefit from the addition of a casus belli to enforce a royal marriage when a country breaks one with you, or the ability to enforce a royal marriage in a peace deal anyway, also peace deals where both contenders gain/lose something would be nice (like A can keep one province he claimed and occupied but has to give money/another province that B wants to B in return)

 

[Klausen Dragoon]

I agree with the others sentiments. These bonuses just feel too arbitrary. I feel as though this would be more interesting if it gave you access to a special functionality. Spitballing, something like:
1) as with claiming colonial regions as your own through the papacy, you can claim old world regions as yours for the plucking
2) access to a unique idea group, complete it before you lose hegemony, or you lose the idea group
3) access to a special unit
4) add extra unit mechanic, like perhaps now you can raze provinces as hordes do, even though you are non-horde
5) PU's now give you monthly income
6) a claim laid on one province auto-claims the area
7) forts add +x attrition in the province/area they are in
8) all ships can now be deployed in trade missions
9) gold never depletes, or developing gold provinces is x% cheaper
10) you can now diplo-vassalize countries with more than 100 development

Stuff like that.

 

[Cardolam]

Quite underwhelming, tbh.

More content to promote more map painting, more content devised for competitive gameplay. In my opinion, not what the game needs to improve.

This time and given the nature of it, only affecting the 1% of players able to pull it off, given the patience, resilience, discipline and lack of imagination necessary to achieve such objectives. Gameplay continues to revolve around min maxing the variables available... so much more the engine could attain than simple goals defined more than 30 years ago in what are now obsolescent game designs.

Given EU4 is now on Humble bundle and if following CK2 example, not a bright way to end the dev cycle of EU4 and quite disappointing in what it signals for EU5.

 

[Denkt]

EUIV take alot of liberties, especially the massive growth don't really make that much sense. Sure there was economic growth but to get an idea, the US in the last 30 years maybe had an absolute more economic growth than the whole EUIV time period had with all countries combined. So one nation in maybe 30 years could outdo a whole world in 400 years.

Military technology in EUIV is super extragrated, being 15 years behind can have a absolute massive difference which as far as I can tell was not the case, Imperator: Rome have a better representation I think about military development.

Saying that hegomony is a fantasy mechanic than EUIV is already built on a very much fantasy version of real life history is not that good argument. In fact it seems it only exist to end the game more convenient which is not really a bad idea in my opinion.

 

[Maxwell Tornado]

How does this make ANYTHING less tedious?!

 

[Denkt]

How does this make ANYTHING less tedious?!

Like make it a bit easier to stackwhip enemy armies

 

[Maxwell Tornado]

Like make it a bit easier to stackwhip enemy armies

You know what I'D want, personally? Admin efficiency.

 

[Denkt]

You know what I'D want, personally? Admin efficiency.

Well maybe next step is to give a I win siege button that instantly finish a siege

EUIV is already very unhistorical, military technology is represented as something more fitting the world today when being 15 years behind can be a massive disadvantage but 15 years in the modern world is maybe a larger gap absolute terms in development than the whole EUIV time period.

 

[Tullaris]

A lot of criticism seems to overlook the goal of this mechanism. The point is not to make the strong stronger. The point is to create a coalition to take down the strong.

Becoming hegemon is like pressing the taunt button. You get some bonusses but inevitably have to face a huge coalition against you.

If the bonusses are not attractive enough, nobody will risk it.

It is simply a risk-reward mechanism.

 

[Arilou]

This is a really bad idea. We dont need a "rich get richer" mechanic, we need the reverse.

At least make hegemons unable to ally normally at all, would at least make it an interesting decision.

 

[Weyird]

Hmmm. This is probably the 1st thing about this DLC/patch that I'm not excited about. I'm not sure why. It looks like something specifically aimed at multiplayer, and I've never played multiplayer before

While adding something to make late-game interesting is good, I think tying it to the French revolution or the an in-game alt-history Napoleonic wars is better.

This just seems... random.

I feel like the dev diary should have given more justification for it or explaination for how they excpect rhe late game situation to go down, or why they chose this over other options...? I'm not sure. I'm left feeling a little perplexed and wondering if there will be an option to disable the mechanic.

 

[master_kong]

Give naval hegemon an edge for overseas domination instead of some naval modifier. Like GB having subjects all over the India after surpassing Netherlands, France and others and truly becoming a naval hegemon(!) in history.

I liked the idea, but just don't give same modifiers we see everywhere as bonuses and give some unique things instead.

 

[Maxwell Tornado]

Well maybe next step is to give a I win siege button that instantly finish a siege

EUIV is already very unhistorical, military technology is represented as something more fitting the world today when being 15 years behind can be a massive disadvantage but 15 years in the modern world is maybe a larger gap absolute terms in development than the whole EUIV time period.

What are you on about?

 

[Denkt]

What are you on about?

Have you played Imperator: Rome? In that game military technology is good but it is very possible to beat someone hundreds of years ahead in it. In EUIV you would probably get destroyed by someone like 2 tech ahead of you (30 or so years of technology development), this may very well be true in the modern world but the modern world is extremely different from the EUIV time period.

EUIV in many ways play more out like it is set in todays world, not 1400s to 1800s.

 

[MateuszNH]

Let's show my point from multiplayer(but not only) perspective
1. Military Hegemon
-Being hegemon of "something" shouldn't add bonuses to the same thing, for example military hegemon should not get military bonuses but expansion or diplomatic ones, manpower or land maintenance is kinda okay but discipline definitely not.
For example military hegemon could make something like these "client states" like rev France or Ottos did,these will break after losing hegemon status. It may also be something of being a "fact" instead of something to claim because of having the largest army, if it's too hard to implement then maybe hegemon would make expansion easier but at cost of bigger AE or something, maybe some sphere of influence like in eu3 but just for the hegemon?
-the requirements are hillarious if i understand it well, it's possible to claim it in ~1520 with 250 forcelimit, u just need to take some loans with intention of bancrupcy after winning a war and recruit yourself double over forcelimit, claim it and then delete your exceeded armies and war is prolly won. It may work like this no matter if it's 500 or 2000 infantry.
-It's not encouraging anyone to punish the hegemon without the delay of for example 100 years after claiming before anyone else can claim it. It needs tons of effort to destroy player with 10 more discipline (20 morale ? ) and just after that someone else will claim it few days later.
2. Naval Hegemon
-These requirments are contrary to military hegemon, it's terribly hard to get 1000 ships and u have to be already economical Hegemon to just maintain these ships. And also because of how naval works it doesn't mean you are hegemon by just having 1000 ships.
-as i said being strongest naval country shouldn't buff your naval strength but add bonuses that are consequences of being hegemon. For example dominating would strengthen trade income, trade steering from other countries, better working embargo and no penalties of being embargoed by the others. I would dream about something like military bonuses in the coastal provinces or naval support in battles for those who are hegemons but i'm not sure it is doable from code side.
3. Economical Hegemon
- just like with the others, having big income shouldn't result in having even more income just by claiming it
-this 33% merc discipline is just what i thought by "the consequences of being the hegemon" but it seems very broken especially if there will be mercenaries artillery (because as every good multi player guy know how typical battle looks like in eu4, it's combat width of artillery on the backrow and everything else as infantry reserves, so 40 art stacks with 33% discipline are broken as hell) i'm not sure if that's true because i didn't see merc changes in action and i'm glad economical powers gets stronger too and meta of "full combat build" may change but i'm worried here.

I guess that's all, generally i can add that 10% cheaper cost stacking with big innovativness and golden era makes everything almost free ( i'm almost sure with these bonuses u can develop hills or even mountain provinces with ~4 monarch points per dev without even having NI to dev cost)
Maybe i forgot about something or u may assume i'm wrong, i'll gladly come into polemics.

 

[Major Malfunction]

Paradox now

 

[Kerham]

As somebody who is struggling to stay ingame past 1700 except extraordinary challenging starts, I couldn't care less about wc-related content.
However, if the point is to pet a bit wc or similar achievement hunters, priorities should be in other directions:
- permaclaims on regions/continents
- diplo slots
- speed of integration
- mobility of armies and of diplo envoys
- mass culling rebellions
- area/region converting
etc.

I would see, from this pov, hegemony reworked in a similar manner to age objectives, where following a mini-tree (not without challenges) you could enact bonuses such as above. Basically trying to be some sort of Mughal replication in other domains than culture integration.