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Welcome to the third development diary for Europa Universalis 4: El Dorado. Today, we’ll be talking about America and Liberty… and no, it’s not about the USA. Specifically, we’ll be talking about the Mesoamerican and South American Inti and Maya religions added in the expansion, and the new Liberty Desire system included in the free patch.


Maya
The Maya were divided into a large number of city-states vying for supremacy. In the past, these states were united in a large confederation called the League of Mayapan until infighting shattered the league. In El Dorado, we’ve attempted to simulate this expansion and contraction through Religious Reforms similar to the ones available to the Nahuatl (for details, see El Dorado Dev Diary 1). For a Mayan nation to pass a reform, they will need to own at least 20 provinces, have positive stability, no revolts, and no overextension. This is a little daunting.

Upon passing a reform, a Maya state will lose about half its territory, shrinking to a size of 10 core provinces determined by culture, religion and distance to capital. Other provinces will break away, joining existing nations or forming new nations and requiring you to reconquer them again. For each reform you have passed, you will be able to keep hold of more territory, retaining an extra province in addition to the original 10. As with the Nahuatl, when the last reform is passed and you border a Western nation, you will be able to reform your religion, getting a tech boost and gaining the permanent benefit of the religious reforms.

The Maya religion starts with +1 Tolerance of the True Faith and +1 Possible Advisors and their reforms give -10% Land Maintenance, -2 Global Unrest, +10% Infantry Power, +1 Colonist and -20% Core-Creation cost.


Inti
Where the Maya and Nahuatl religions are about expansion and contraction, the Inti faith is about maintaining the authority of the Sapa Inca by having the people worship him as a God. Inti nations have an Authority value that goes up from owning vast stretches of territory, and goes down when the ruler grants autonomy to a province (either from granting autonomy via by the grant autonomy action, being forced to by rebels, or choosing to do so in an event). Authority is also affected by a number of unique events added for the Inti religion. Authority reduces unrest and makes it cheaper to increase stability.

An Inti state that has 100 Authority and owns at least 10 provinces can pass a Religious Reform, but doing so will remove all their Authority and spark a civil war as a pretender exploits the loss of authority to attempt to seize the throne for themselves. After all, every reformer is challenged if they go too far.

If you lose this civil war, two Religious Reforms are lost, greatly setting back your progress towards reforming your religion.

As with the Nahuatl and Maya, when the last reform is passed and you border a Western nation, you will be able to reform your religion, getting a tech boost and gaining the permanent benefit of the religious reforms. Because the Inti religion does not have the same cycle of expansion and contraction as other two, Inti religious reforms are generally weaker than those of the Maya and the Nahuatl, but easier to accomplish.

The Inti religion starts with +1 Tolerance of the True Faith and -0.05 Monthly Autonomy in all provinces and their reforms give +10% Manpower Recovery Speed, +1 Colonist, +0.5 Yearly Legitimacy, +0.05 Land Morale and -10% Core-Creation Cost.

As the Nahuatl reforms were not finalized in DD1, I will also take the time to share them: -0.05 War Exhaustion, +1 Diplomatic Relations, +5% Discipline, +1 Colonist and -20% Stability Cost Modifier.


Liberty Desire
In Conquest of Paradise, we introduced the concept of Liberty Desire for Colonial Nations, measuring their desire to break away from their parent country, but the system has always been a bit too simplified revolving almost entirely around tariffs and very rarely resulting in said Colonial Nations winning their independence.

In the 1.10 patch, we will be introducing a major rework of Liberty Desire that turns it into a much deeper and more interesting system, but also expands it to all other subjects such as Vassals and Personal Union juniors. In 1.10, each subject has a Liberty Desire towards their Overlord, calculated based on a large number of factors such as opinion, diplomatic reputation, relative power, and relative diplomatic technology levels. Certain subject types like Marches and Client States are more loyal and thus have inherently lower Liberty Desire, while the Daimyos of Japan are an unruly bunch and have a large bonus to their LD. Vassals will also be aware of the power of all vassals relative to their liege, and their Liberty Desire will go up if they think that they could, together, bring you down. (This might even tame early game France - a little.)

While Liberty Desire is lower than 50, the subject will be considered ‘Loyal’ (as seen in their attitude). They will dutifully pay taxes, send their armies to help you in war, and refuse any offers of Support for Independence.

If Liberty Desire is above 50, but below 100, the Vassal is considered ‘Disloyal’. They will refuse to pay taxes and tariffs, won’t send their armies to help you in war (only defending their own territory) and will both look for foreign powers to support their independence and seek to ally with other rebellious subjects of their liege. If they find allies and supporters, their Liberty Desire goes up by an amount depending on the power of said supporters and allies.

At 100, the subject will be ‘Rebellious’. They will not only refuse to pay taxes and send help, but will declare war for independence the moment they think they have a shot at winning. When a subject declares war for independence, they will automatically call in all other subjects of their liege that they are allied to, and all independence supporters of both themselves AND their allies, meaning that their liege can be faced with quite the independence war indeed.

All in all, this system is meant to make vassals feel more lifelike - they are no longer mere slaves to their liege’s whims, but independent entities with their own goals who may turn on their ‘overlord’ if he does not take care to maintain their loyalty.


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Check out all the videos for #EuropaUniversalis IV: El Dorado expansion here:
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How will 'relative power to liege' be calculated? I just feel like Poland-Lithuania will be a lot more unstable, due to Lithuania's initial massive size compared to Poland. The same goes for personal unions enforced in the rest of Europe. For example, last game I played Sweden, I fought Austria for a PU and won, but will this even be possible to maintain with the new liberty desire mechanics?

You won't hear me crying if it won't - PUs have been ridiculously stable since EU3, for the player and the AI whole. Coupled with the LN tendency to culture convert everything...god, I shouldn't have seen Cosmopolitain Warsaw thrice, but I sure did.
 
Nerfing vassal feeding frenzy = Yay

Sounds like a WC just became a lot harder since the HRE vassal swarm won't be possible unless Austria (or whoever is the emperor) is really strong - in which case the vassals would be fewer.

Three thumbs up overall from me.
 
Really like the change in vassal mechanics. So far using vassals has be a bit of a no-brainer, I think this might bring some more choice whether or not to have an army of vassals.

Also, Golladan asked a pretty valid question on what happens if the emperor vassalises all of HRE.
 
Might as well not have the mechanic exist then, if you think all PUs should break. :V

Even if they revolt, you can win the war to keep them. I'll wait to see how it plays in practice before judging, but the modifiers in the OP look like it will be feasible to keep a larger PU partner below 50% through opinion (up to -20%), trust (up to -20%?) and diprep (-15% with diplo and influence).
 
Will they at least honour truces? I mean, I've just forced PU on someone of my caliber. I'm exhausted. They hate me. What stops them from allying with my rivals to break free right away, while grabbing a little on top of that?

They won't DOW for independence if they have a truce.
 
Even if they revolt, you can win the war to keep them. I'll wait to see how it plays in practice before judging, but the modifiers in the OP look like it will be feasible to keep a larger PU partner below 50% through opinion (up to -20%), trust (up to -20%?) and diprep (-15% with diplo and influence).

PUs declaring a war of independence resets the timer for annexation. Even if you win the war, you're still down one relation slot on a subject who isn't liable to be useful for another 50 years.
 
Are the reformation bonuses listed in order? I'm assuming you lose the bonuses, once you reform your government, yes?

You can take the bonuses in any order, and you keep them after reforming.
 
Doesn't really address the PU issue, though. It's fairly possible to have other subjects and then luck into a PU with another great power and suddenly to have them exceed your army size.

PUs calculate their liberty desire based on individual strength towards liege.
 
How will 'relative power to liege' be calculated? I just feel like Poland-Lithuania will be a lot more unstable, due to Lithuania's initial massive size compared to Poland. The same goes for personal unions enforced in the rest of Europe. For example, last game I played Sweden, I fought Austria for a PU and won, but will this even be possible to maintain with the new liberty desire mechanics?

Vassals and Marches calculate it based on all Vassals and Marches. Other subjects calculate based on their individual power to liege. Lithuania generally stays loyal to Poland because of various friendship factors (and historical friends in particular).
 
PUs declaring a war of independence resets the timer for annexation. Even if you win the war, you're still down one relation slot on a subject who isn't liable to be useful for another 50 years.

Are we playing the same game? PUs are so useful that I rarely even try to integrate them unless they are small enough not to be worth a slot (in which case they aren't a threat either).
 
Are we playing the same game? PUs are so useful that I rarely even try to integrate them unless they are small enough not to be worth a slot (in which case they aren't a threat either).

I'm speaking under the hypothetical "if this subject's liberty desire is between 50 and 99%, then it's a sitting duck" scenario, which is where it's problematic. PUs between great powers have a great chance of not being useful, amusingly enough.
 
All in all, this system is meant to make vassals feel more lifelike - they are no longer mere slaves to their liege’s whims, but independent entities with their own goals who may turn on their ‘overlord’ if he does not take care to maintain their loyalty.

The system is to make landgrab through vassals much harder, also affects vassal swarm tactics. Increasing difficulty via arbitary numbers again. Great.
 
How will this affect the Kalmar Union dynamic?
 
Thanks Wiz for the answers. That clears a lot of things up.

I usually liked to keep strong vassals like Prussia or Styria or Persia around, probably have to change that play style and stick with smaller vassals or integrate them sooner than usual.
 
Thanks Wiz for the answers. That clears a lot of things up.

I usually liked to keep strong vassals like Prussia or Styria or Persia around, probably have to change that play style and stick with smaller vassals or integrate them sooner than usual.

You can also make them into Marches, as that gives them a large reduction to LD.
 
I'm speaking under the hypothetical "if this subject's liberty desire is between 50 and 99%, then it's a sitting duck" scenario, which is where it's problematic. PUs between great powers have a great chance of not being useful, amusingly enough.

Like I said, it seems like keeping in below 50% will be feasible even with a larger PU minor, but since the modifiers will work differently with PUs (at least own vs. total power as Wiz wrote above), no way to know for sure yet.

When you get a much larger PU minor, they should be more of a threat than an asset.